


How Not To Be A Successful Editor

by Healiel



Category: Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi
Genre: Confusion, Drama & Romance, Feelings, Insecurity, M/M, Meeting the Parents, New Year's Kiss, Romantic Comedy, Trapped In A Closet, Work Ethics, Workplace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 11:32:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2810609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Healiel/pseuds/Healiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There may come in each person's life, a moment where they feel as if they have reached a glass ceiling. For Onodera Ritsu, this came with crippling anxiety.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Not To Be A Successful Editor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [very](https://archiveofourown.org/users/very/gifts).



 

Onodera Ritsu hated the monthly sales reports.

 

More specifically, he started hating them when he noticed a particular trend over the past few months. The manga he worked on had reached their sales peak. The numbers sold were almost always the same, sometimes more, sometimes less. It aggravated him to no end. Takano’s and Hatori’s sales records had kept growing bigger and bigger as the year reached its end, and that left him even more disappointed with his own work.

 

His manga weren’t doing badly by any means, but he had realized that it was probably because at this point it was the same people buying new issues as the months went on. It wasn’t a good sign, and the pitch he had made the last month to boost sales had been rejected by Takano. The specific words the man had used were, “You haven’t thought this through well enough, redo it and show me.” Ritsu had run out of ideas and never gotten back to Takano on the topic. The editor-in-chief never asked about it either, so Ritsu had felt as if the fault lay in his own ideas and never bothered reworking them.

 

Which was why he was still sitting in the office after everyone had left, scowling at the sales records for the month of November and trying to fathom how he could possibly break out of his slump.

 

“Onodera!”

 

Ritsu startled as he turned around, the scowl still firmly plastered on his face.

 

Takano was staring blankly at him, his coat was on and it looked as if he was ready to leave, “Aren’t you going home?”

 

“Huh?” A quick look at his watch confirmed that it was nearing 8 PM. Ritsu could feel something screaming inside him, he had just spent the whole day doing nothing productive and feeling miserable, “I’ll… leave a bit later. I still have some work to do.” He wasn’t exactly being untruthful, he did have a draft to go through that day. It was something that had completely slipped his mind the moment he opened that formidable document in the morning. It had become a routine, he would go to work, open the Sales Records, stare at it miserably while coming up with ideas on how to improve his statistics, but at the end, he could find no motivation to get anything done so he would move through the day in a daze. After lunch break, he would open the document again and finally, when he felt he could do no more work that day, he would open the document for the last time and stare at it blankly.

 

Takano was looking concerned, and that annoyed Ritsu, “I’ll be getting back to work now.” With that, he started to turn back towards the screen when an index finger poked his forehead.

 

“Takano-san, what are you doing?” His scowl deepened as he felt the finger move his head back and forth. He was not a Bobblehead Toy, what was Takano doing?

“Do you ever stop scowling?” The man asked, slowly breaking into a smile.

 

“Stop that!” Ritsu grabbed on to the finger to move it out of his way, “And I’m not scowling.”

 

“Tch.” He heard Takano snort and he stood up in his chair. He turned around, and stood up as straight as he could. He just about reached Takano’s nose at his full height, and that aggravated him even more. Even his genes had let him down.

 

“Takano-san, this is what I look like. I am not scowling and I really have work to do, so if you’ll excuse me.” Ritsu stared in surprise as he felt the finger slip out from his grasp and Takano’s face moved to within inches of his, “I think you’re overworking yourself.”

 

Ritsu could feel the man’s breath on his face and his knees began to tremble slightly, “What are you doing?”

 

Without answering the question, Takano brought his hands to Ritsu’s face, and while slowly caressing him, landed a soft kiss on the man’s lips. Ritsu fumbled for a moment before grasping what was happening and started to push the man away, “Takano-san! Not here!” He could feel his cheeks burning as the Takano stepped closer to him, moved his head to one side and slowly whispered in Ritsu’s ear, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

 

It wasn’t until Takano had left and he was sitting alone in the dark office that Ritsu realized his heart was beating at an unnaturally fast pace. If work didn’t kill him first, Takano-induced heart attack was a close second on his list.

* * *

The next morning, Onodera Ritsu found it really difficult to get out of his bed. Every time he opened his eyes, images of the Forbidden Document floated before his eyes. And it didn’t help that he hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep the night before either. Between nightmares of how he could never be a successful editor at Marukawa, and waking dreams of the same, he was beginning to find it very difficult to function at all.

 

His mood dampened further once he realized that he would have to travel to work with Takano that morning. He had been trying very hard to avoid the man for the whole month, but as luck would have it, Takano had been waiting outside his apartment that day.

 

“Onodera.” Ritsu noted that he sounded a bit worried and released a slow grunt in response, “Are you eating well?”

 

Everything was getting on Ritsu’s nerves, especially Takano and Hatori, “Yes.” He stared at the man, waiting defiantly for a response.

 

Takano just sighed, “Lately you’ve had that look on your face all the time. If something is bothering you, you could tell me.” He moved his hands to ruffle Ritsu’s hair.

 

The younger man did not object, he didn’t feel like doing anything, “I’m fine.” He murmured before walking towards the elevator. He could hear Takano’s footsteps coming from behind him, and glanced back one time before moving even more quickly forward.

* * *

“Richchan, here’s your coffee!” Kisa chirped as he plonked down on his seat, the movement making the chair swivel slightly as it bumped against the chair Ritsu was sitting on. Ritsu slowly turned his head, stared at the man before taking the coffee and went back to looking at the document.

 

“Ooh, Richchan looks scary!” Kisa teased as he moved in to look at what Ritsu was doing, “Looking at that again? It looks like you’re doing well.” He laughed pleasantly before he realized Ritsu was staring at him.

 

“Thank you.” The man replied before taking a sip of his coffee and going back to staring at his laptop screen.

 

Kisa opened his mouth to say something, but he felt something light crash on his head and he quickly turned his attention to the source of his pain, “Takano-san! No fair.”

 

“If you have time to chat amongst yourselves, I can assume you have finished everything you have to today.” Takano replied with a straight face. The dark circles under his eyes were even more pronounced, and that made him look even more threatening than he intended.

 

“Aha…haha…” Kisa nervously went back to work, damn the year end deadlines. It felt like a marathon where the loser would be sentenced to death. He looked at Ritsu one last time, and noticed that he hadn’t started working on the draft that had been lying on his desk for the past two days, “Richchan, are you okay?”

 

“Thank you.” Ritsu replied absentmindedly.

 

Kisa was not sure what was going on, but he decided that he would talk to Ritsu later. If he needed any help, then as his workplace senior, Kisa wanted to be there to lend any assistance he could; after he finished his own work of course.

* * *

The morning had passed by and Ritsu had no results to show for what he had done that day. He nervously paced around the room; everyone else seemed to be working frantically. There was paper strewn all over the world, Kisa’s desk was full of cups of finished coffee and Hatori had just run out of the office muttering something about. “This time I will make that draft arrive in time.”

 

Mino was sitting calmly at his desk, his hands working on something at a furious pace, and Takano was pacing all across the office answering one phone call after another. Phone calls? Ritsu felt something sink in his heart as he reached into his pocket to retrieve his phone. The deadline was coming up, and he was supposed to have called the printers to buy them more time. He hadn’t even asked after anyone’s drafts, he wasn’t sure how he could since he was barely finished with any of his work himself.

 

One of the authors he worked with hadn’t been in touch with him at all, he wasn’t sure how he was going to do anything. How did he let everything get this bad? He took one last look at the Sales Record for November before shakily reaching for the work he had left untouched. Would he be able to finish on time?

 

“Onodera! Can you hear me?” He started as he felt a hand tap him lightly on the head. Bewildered, he turned around to find an annoyed Takano looking at him, “I was asking where we were with the printers?” And of course he had to bring that up just as this moment.

 

“I’ll… I’ll call them now.” Ritsu fumbled to grab his phone.

 

At the same time, Takano reached down to grab the untouched draft from his desk, “Why haven’t you finished this?”

 

Ritsu could find nothing to say, “I’ll get it done now.” He spoke softly.

 

“What have you been doing these past few days? Do you even take your work seriously?” Takano spoke louder than necessary and a dull silence fell over the room. Takano quickly looked at the room’s other occupants as they scrambled to get back to work.

 

Ritsu could feel his cheeks turning red as he turned to retrieve the draft from Takano, “I’ll do it right now.” He tugged lightly on the bunch of paper.

 

“That still doesn’t answer why this is unfinished. And I still haven’t seen your work on the Sales Pitch.” Takano was speaking more softly now, but his voice could still be heard all across the office.

 

“I’ll do that too.” Ritsu said as he snatched the document back from Takano, placed it on his desk, hunched down and covered the shakily reached for a red pen.

 

“The deadlines are coming in two weeks.” 

 

Ritsu was sure he was still being reprimanded, but Takano continued, “I’ll buy us some more time if I have to, everyone get back to work.” And with that, Takano started pacing around the room with his phone again.

 

Ritsu felt absolutely miserable. He looked at the draft, and for some reason, looking at work made him sick to his stomach. He simply hated the thought of working on manga. Why couldn’t he be better at his job?

* * *

During lunchbreak, Ritsu poked at his bento, not eating a bite. He was busy thinking about how to get done with the mountain he had accumulated, but each time he tried to cheer himself up, he kept reminding himself that he was a subpar editor and probably not meant to work in the manga editing department. It made him loose his appetite, and even though he could feel that his stomach was empty, he simply didn’t feel like eating.

 

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

 

Ritsu looked up in front of him as Takano sat down on the chair opposite his in the cafeteria.

 

“I…” Ritsu poked at his food even more furiously.

 

“You look like you’re trying to murder your food.” Takano had placed his head on one hand and casually lifted his chopsticks with the other.

 

“I…” Ritsu could think of nothing to say

 

“Are you sure you’re feeling well?” Takano had gone right back to looking concerned

 

“I’m just not sure how I can…” Takano waited for Ritsu to finish, but the man was simply poking at his food, a dazed look in his eyes.

 

“… finish your job?” Takano helpfully supplied. Ritsu looked up at him in surprise and he continued, “If there’s something you don’t understand, you could always ask me.”

 

“I just… I’m not sure I’m good enough to do this.” Takano seemed a bit surprised by this. It wasn’t like Ritsu to say something like that, the Ritsu he knew would just say something snarky about how he could manage his workload just fine and storm off.

 

“Onodera…” Takano started, “If there’s something bothering you…” He had to stop himself from reaching out to touch Ritsu. The man looked so miserable that he felt he had to do something, “I think you can do your job just fine.”

 

Ritsu looked shocked, “You managed to learn the ropes around here pretty fast, and your works keep selling well.”

 

“Not well enough,” Ritsu muttered under his breath, but Takano caught that.

 

“Ha?! You just keep doing what you’re doing. The number of copies being sold is the priority of the Sales Department.”

 

“Yes, well… I can’t deny that there’s at least something I can do to help the author. The manga you and Hatori-san work on always seem to sell really well!”

 

“Is that why you’ve been wearing a scowl everywhere you go?” Takano looked a bit annoyed, “Look here. We’re more experienced than you and work on manga that are completely different from yours. You should be focusing on your own work and not moping around while comparing yourself to other people.”

 

Moping around? Ritsu had been moping around. He felt a surge of rage build up inside him. Well sure, technically he had been moping around and that was wrong of him, but did Takano really think that him being insecure about his job performance had no bearing on his life?

 

“I appreciate your advice Takano-san, but this really has nothing to do with you or Hatori-san having more experience than me. I simply feel inadequate, that’s all.” He almost bit his tongue when he finished that sentence, he had not meant to let that last part slip out.

 

“You know Onodera, maybe it’s the moping around that is making you feel inadequate. You should just focus on doing what you can do.” Takano had gone back to lecturing him on things he had no interest in hearing.

 

“It’s because I am doing what I have been from the start that I am ‘moping around’.” He finished. He could feel that his heart was beating fast, and his face felt red hot. Takano was staring at him in surprise, his mouth hanging half open and his chopsticks suspended in midair, “Onodera…”

 

“Thank you for your advice. I really appreciate it, I will do what you said right now and go back to work.” Ritsu moved as fast as he could, dropping  his unfinished bento in the trash bin and practically running out of the cafeteria. He could hear people whispering as he left. He had never felt so embarrassed in his life.

* * *

For the rest of the day, Takano had been hovering around him like a mother looking after a sick child. Ritsu had no clue how that man always managed to finish his workload that fast, but he was  happy Takano had decided to take an active interest in Ritsu’s work. At this point, he really did feel as if he could take all the help he got.

 

Takano had given priority to checking through the draft Ritsu had finally finished and the copy was immediately faxed back to the author. Now all he had to do was call her up and tell her what things he thought she should work through.

 

Takano had even taken on the responsibility of collecting all the manuscripts and handing them to the Printers himself for that month. Ritsu wasn’t sure if he was happy with that, it made him feel as if his boss was carrying the burden of him not being able to finish his own work on time, but Takano had been adamant and sent Ritsu right back to checking drafts, calling authors and working on the Sales Pitch which Takano now demanded that Ritsu hand in by the end of the day.

 

Ritsu felt absolutely miserable, but he also felt that at this rate, he might be able to finish the work he had been neglecting. Under the editor-in-chief’s guard, work proceeded at a surprising pace in the office. Ritsu had always wondered whether people were lazy just because he was a bit new in the role, and now he felt as if he was right. He felt fired up, from the next month onward he would be twice the demon Takano was. Work would get done twice as fast, and there would be no last minute meltdowns before the deadlines.

 

He was moving as fast as he could, the cup of coffee Kisa had brought him lay untouched on his desk, he had no time to even breathe. By the time he felt as if he was done with his work, the office was empty. Takano was on his chair, one of his legs lay on the table and his head rested on his shoulders at a very uncomfortable angle. It made Ritsu cringe at the thought of the kind of cramps that would give him.

 

Ritsu finally stood up from his chair and stretched, he was beginning to feel a little more relaxed. Doing what he could was not bad advice at all, and he felt more accomplished today than he had in a while. He looked in Takano’s direction and a small smile made its way to his lips. The man was very reliable. He quietly tiptoed over to where the man was, moving on instinct. He didn’t want to wake Takano up, but for some unfathomable reason he felt like removing the man’s glasses. It rested on Takano’s nose, looking dangerously close to falling off. The left ring of the glasses was pointing to the air, and the right part was crushed between his ears and shoulders. On second thought, not removing it might be easier.

 

It was then that Ritsu remembered that he had had no contact from an author he had been waiting to hear back from for days. He felt a small, desperate scream escape his lips as he lunged for the phone on Takano’s table. The man woke up, startled and looked around the room to check if everything was alright. Takano groaned and sat up, silently massaging his neck. Ritsu felt a small cheer well up inside him, he had known that that would happen.

 

But he quickly pushed aside his little moment of joy and started dialing the author’s number frantically. He had been in touch with her so many times over the last two months that he knew it by memory now. Ritsu wasn’t sure what had happened to her, but she had almost defaulted the last month. Had she even sent in a first draft copy? Ritsu hadn’t seen it at all. Damn it! He just prayed that he had missed something, and that she was waiting to hear back from him.

 

He noticed Takano looking at him with a confused look in his eyes, and he sent back what he hoped was a reassuring look. But he could feel his own heart beat rising.

 

“Ah, hello? This is Onodera from Marukawa Publishing.”

 

“Hello.” The voice on the other end was soft, “I’ll send the draft by the end of the week.”

 

“What?” Ritsu heard the phone go dead as he muffled one last, “Wait!”

 

What was happening?

 

“Onodera?” Takano was leaning in to look at the number

 

“Uh… everything’s okay. I just need to call her back. There was something wrong with the call.” He laughed awkwardly.

 

Takano still looked puzzled, but pointed to the phone. Takano wanted him to make the phone call from there? Ritsu wanted to do it from the comfort of his desk, far away from Takano’s eyes. There was no time to work through the different drafts of the manga, and judging by the way she had acted, Ritsu felt almost certain that it wasn’t his mistake, but that she hadn’t sent in even one copy yet.

 

Without a word Ritsu pressed the redial button and waited for the person on the other end to pick up.

 

“Hello, this is Onodera from…”

 

“I can’t write this.” The voice sounded strained

 

“What? Why?”  Ritsu felt confused.

 

“I… I don’t know how to write this. I… is it possible to default?”

 

“Default?” Ritsu noticed that Takano had stood up after hearing this, “At this stage it might be a little hard to do that. Could you tell me what happened?” He tried to sound as calm as he could, and he hoped that he sounded reassuring.

 

He felt Takano tug at the phone, the man wanted to talk to the author, but Ritsu moved out of reach, “I don’t know if I can write romance anymore.”

 

“Why? You’re doing well. Your work sells really well.” The words came freely from Ritsu’s mouth, and he felt a sense of déjà vu.

 

Takano was now leaning over the table, trying to reach Ritsu and looking really annoyed. Ritsu placed one leg on Takano’s table and using that to balance himself, used his free hand to try and push Takano back. He could take care of this, he didn’t need Takano’s help.

 

“They do?” The voice perked up slightly, “But then… I can’t. Not anymore.”

 

“Hah?” Takano was trying to push Ritsu out of the way, and the younger man felt himself losing his balance, “They do, your fans love reading your work. I love reading your work. Please reco-”

 

The author heard a loud crash come from the other end of the like, “Onodera-san?”

There were muffled groans coming from the other end before Ritsu’s voice came back,  
 “Ugh… I’m sorry. There was a small accident here.”

 

“Are you alright?” The voice enquired.

 

“Yes. It was simply the weight of my past sins falling with full force on top of me.”

 

The author felt confused, and she was sure that she could near a man snorting on the other end, “Onodera-san?”

 

“Would it be inconvenient if I came over right now?”

 

“Now? No… that might be helpful.”

 

“I’ll see you soon then.” And with that, Ritsu ended the call.

 

Takano was still lying sprawled over Ritsu, “Ah, Takano-san, could you get off from me now?”

 

“Weight of your past sins?” The man looked amused and Ritsu was almost convinced that he was making himself heavier to make Ritsu suffer.

 

“I… well, it’s my fault the draft isn’t done yet. I should have checked on her before.” Takano was looking at him intently and Ritsu quickly turned his head, “I wasn’t talking about …this.”

 

“This? What do you mean?” Ritsu squirmed as he felt Takano’s hand rest on his hips.

 

“Not… here. Takano-san!” Ritsu tried to move the hand away, it would not do to get caught at work. He tried to turn to the side, but the man was too heavy.

 

“You’ve been avoiding me, haven’t you?” Takano grabbed one of Ritsu’s hands to stop him from squirming. Ritsu looked at the man again, he was looking hurt.

 

Quick footsteps coming towards the direction of their office alerted both men and Takano released Ritsu from his grip. Ritsu was breathing heavily and looking at Takano.

 

“Ri-ricchan?” Kisa had entered the office and was staring at the pile of two men lying between the office desks. Takano’s desk looked like it had been moved and the man’s chair lay on the floor. Had he interrupted a fight?

 

“Kisa-san!” Ritsu sat up and roughly pushed Takano away, “This is an accident. He fell over his table and…”

 

“Uh… are you two alright?” Kisa laughed uncomfortably. It looked like today wasn’t a good day to offer Ritsu his help, “I’ll uh… I’ll see you guys tomorrow. I left something here and came back for it.” Kisa quickly moved towards his desk and grabbed a random piece of paper and scurried out. He had definitely interrupted something.

 

“Takano-san!” Ritsu turned to glare at Takano, “This is why I said not at work.”

 

Takano didn’t reply, he turned around and started gathering the things that had fallen off his desk, “Takano-san?”

 

Ritsu felt uncomfortable with the gaze that man had given him, he looked hurt. But whatever his reasons, Ritsu was of the opinion that there were some things that should just not be attempted at work. He didn’t want people to know about parts of his life he himself hadn’t settled yet. Work and private matters are best kept separate.

 

“I’m going to go now.” Ritsu continued.

 

“I’m coming with you.” Takano replied. He was now gathering his coat.   

 

“Huh? I can handle this.”

 

“This is work Onodera. And I am coming with you to find out what is happening.” Ritsu sighed. He couldn’t argue with the man, and bringing the editor-in-chief in tow might help convince the author.

 

After cleaning their desks and grabbing their coats, the two men made their way to the elevator. Ritsu hoped that things would come to a good resolution. He did not want her to default.

* * *

Ritsu had been casually glancing at Takano all the way to the author’s house. The man had been unusually quiet all the way to their destination, and Ritsu was trying to understand what the man was thinking.

 

His eyes followed Takano as the man made his way to their destination and pressed the buzzer. Within moments they were on the elevator. Ritsu still couldn’t take his eyes off the man.

 

He watched as Takano leaned in towards him and slowly whispered, “Do I have something on my face?”

 

“Uh?” Quickly snapping out of his reverie, Ritsu jumped on the spot and spoke in broken sentences, “No- You-Uh… Nothing.”

 

Takano brought his hands to his face and tried to hide a smile. Ritsu noticed that and looked away, the sense of relief that he felt made it a little easier to breathe. After the work days from hell ended, he would have to sit down and think about the whole Takano situation. The way he had been feeling recently reminded him a lot of his high school days. What did it matter if Takano looked sad? It was none of his business. He didn’t want to push himself down another painful road of heart break and insecurity, even if it all stemmed from a misunderstanding.

 

Ping.

 

“We’re here!” Ritsu couldn’t wait for the door to open, and as soon as there was enough room for him to squeeze through he darted all the way to the designated apartment. He had to convince her to pull through; he wanted her to finish no matter what.

 

He was lying when he said that she couldn’t still default, there were other drafts lying around that could easily be turned into a ‘Christmas/New Year Special’ in exchange for her story. But the bad reputation that came with being a defaulter was not something he wanted any of the people he worked with to face. That and he was being selfish. Maybe if this had happened at a time when he wasn’t on the verge of giving up on his job he would have behaved differently. Maybe he still would have done what he was doing now. But for that moment, he felt that maybe if he got through to her, it would make up for his many mistakes.

 

Slowing down near the door, he collected himself and rang the doorbell. Takano came and stood at his side and the two of them waited.

 

“Hello.” A voice sounded from the other side of the door.

 

“This is Onodera from Marukawa Publishing. I am sorry to intrude on you so late.”

 

“No, thank you for coming.” Came the same mellow voice as the door opened. The figure on the other side looked disheveled. Her eyes were puffy, her hair was messy and the large number of ink stains on her hands gave away how much she was working on her draft. She looked at the figure standing next to Ritsu and shrank back a bit, but she nodded at him.

 

“I’m sorry for intruding,”  said Takano before both men made their way inside the apartment.

* * *

The work station was messier than the Emerald Department during crunch time.

 

A large room at the back of the apartment was where she worked. The most prominent part of the room was the large table that took up most of the space in it. There were four chairs spaced at equal distances on the table, two on one side of the giant rectangle and two on the other. Four women sat there looking dead tired and looking at the two editors very curiously. The room was brightly lit, especially above the table. But what really caught Ritsu’s attention was the floor, or lack thereof. There was so much paper lying on the floor that Ritsu had a hard time trying to figure out what the floor looked like.

 

“Discarded.” The author pointed  to the floor with one hand and the  held a handkerchief to her face with the other.

 

Ritsu had seen meltdowns before, but this was on a whole new level.

 

Takano was looking around the room. “I’ll get some chairs for us.” He motioned to the woman seated nearest to him.

 

“Yes?” She replied.

 

“Could you show me what you have done so far?” He looked at Ritsu and back at the room.

 

Wait. Did Takano want him to get the chairs? He felt annoyed, and was about to say something snarky but stopped himself, “Okay.” He started to leave the room, and just as Takano had anticipated, the author followed him.

 

“I’ll show you where I keep my extra chairs,”  she said as she led him out of the room. Ritsu looked back at Takano one last time. The man was intently going through the unfinished drafts that were being brought to him, had Takano known she would follow him?

* * *

“Do you want something to drink?” asked the author, gesturing towards the kitchen.

 

“We’re fine, there’s no need for that.” Ritsu brought his hands in front of him and waved his hands in a cross motion. What he wanted more than anything was to figure out what was happening there.

 

“I…” She brought the handkerchief to her face again, and Ritsu noticed that she had been crying.

 

“Do you want to sit down?” He asked and followed her to the couch in the centre of the room.

 

“Thank you.” She sniffed, “I’m really sorry to trouble you so much. But every time I look at that story, well…” She looked to the floor, her sniffing was getting worse.

 

“If you’re ill…”

 

“I’m not ill.” She was beginning to look serious, “I…”

 

“You can tell me what’s troubling you.” Ritsu tried to be encouraging. The sense of déjà vu was back. If these words didn’t work on him, he wasn’t sure if they would work on her, “I’m your editor. We work on this manga together,”  he continued.

 

She was looking at him now, “I won’t stop you if you want to give up, but you said you wanted me to come here, so doesn’t that mean that you want to finish your story after all?” He hoped he was making sense.

 

She brought the handkerchief down from her face, “I do want to write.” That was a good sign, “My… boyfriend…” Here she started to blush and looked away from Ritsu, “We got into a fight and he said… that my stories were unrealistic and that why they didn’t sell well.”

 

Didn’t sell well? Ritsu could feel his insecurities slowly creeping back inside him, he had to keep talking. For his sake, he had to talk, “I’m sorry, but does he work at Marukawa?”

 

She looked surprised, “No. He works at an office.”

 

“Then there’s no way he would know how many copies you’re selling.” He tried to smile, “Maybe, next time something like this bothers you, you could call me?”

 

“He… he said that there were some people at his work that read my manga. They said I should stop writing so someone who is better at their job could replace me.” She started sniffing again, “I’m sorry, for being unprofessional. I’m just proving them right.”

 

“If the manga was doing as badly as you think, then it’s Marukawa Publishing’s fault as much as your own.” Ritsu’s hands were shaking, this was the absolute worst time to have this conversation, “If we want to keep publishing you instead of someone else, then it’s our priority.”

 

“Is it really that bad?” She asked, her voice sounded uncertain. Did she really want to know?

 

Ritsu was trying to look calm, but he could think of nothing to say. They were taking too long, and he had no doubt that Takano would come in soon and take over the whole situation. He wanted to do this by himself, “I think you’re doing really well.” He smiled.

 

“I know I’m a new editor, but if that’s worrying you…” She quickly looked away from him. So it was bothering her. He had been working at Marukawa for almost a year, how long did he have to be a newbie, “… Takano-san always goes through the final drafts.”

 

“Oh.” She was sitting up straighter now, “That’s good to know.” Ritsu tried to smile, but he was annoyed.

 

“I’m sorry, I may have said some untoward things to you.” She noticed his awkward smile, “Since we work on this manga together, I’m not the only one responsible for the outcome… you, my assistants, Marukawa Publishing…”

 

“We’re all in this together.” Ritsu finished.

 

She smiled at him and nodded, “Yes.” She pointed towards the room where she worked, “Shall we get started?”

* * *

Onodera Ritsu loved his own bed more than anything else.

 

It had been almost midnight by the time they had left the author’s apartment. She had seemed a lot more confident, and Ritsu was hopeful that she might be able to pull through with the draft in time. It had been a productive day, and he was ecstatic to have caught the last train leaving the station. He had stopped to pick up a bento on the way back, and since he had gone in so late, he also had the pleasure of being able to pick up food at 30% discount. Life was looking up.

 

Of course it would have been even better had Takano not followed him into the Convenience Store and commented on his food choices, “You could get a stomach ache from eating take out all the time.” Ritsu begged to differ. The reason bentos were sold at convenience stores was because they were both nutritious and useful for people who worked all the time and had no time to make their own food. When did Takano cook at any rate? As if being a first rate editor wasn’t enough, now he had to be a shining beacon of domestic life as well? How could someone be so irritating and endearing at the same time? Enamoring? Ritsu stuffed his head into his pillow. Nope, that was a mistake. He was irritating and annoying. Satisfied with that, he relaxed his face and turned his head towards the wall. One day, he would be an editor as good as Takano. Until then, he couldn’t give up on his job.

 

That night Ritsu suffered from a terrible stomach ache.

 

There was no way this had happened from the bento, the food hadn’t tasted bad, at least not rotten anyway. All that stress from work must finally be getting to him. He cast away any thoughts of taking a day off from work, there was simply too much that had to be done. He could not spare even a moment to rest. Just two more weeks, he kept telling himself.

* * *

The next morning, after making sure he had grabbed everything, he slowly made his way out of the apartment. If he walked too fast, his stomach started to hurt more than he was comfortable with. He was used to these symptoms anyway, they came and went, and the doctor had said it wasn’t an ulcer. As much as it pained him to admit to it, a part of him felt that eating cold take out available on discount might be at least somewhat responsible for his present predicament.

 

“Ah!” As soon as he got out of the apartment, he noticed the elevator door on the other side of the hallway was closing, “Please hold that!” He hoped someone had just gotten on.

After slowly wobbling all the way there, he got inside the elevator and turned to thank the person who had held the door, “Takano-san.”

 

“Scowling first thing in the morning?” Takano started to yawn and covered his mouth

 

“This is what I look like.” Ritsu stiffly replied, turning away.

 

“I couldn’t get a wink of sleep last night.” Takano continued, “Especially not with you loudly groaning.”

 

“Ritsu snapped around, “Groaning?! I’ll have you know I was in terrible pain because of my…” He unconsciously reached for his stomach and softly mumbled, “...stomach.”

 

Takano’s face was slowly breaking into a smirk. “If it bothered you so much you should have just gone to sleep somewhere else!” Ritsu finished, before turning back around.

 

“Huh? Why do I have to change the position of my bed because you can’t sleep quietly?”

 

Wait. Their beds were next to each other? Ritsu  hadn’t known that. He felt flushed and he prayed that  it didn’t show on his cheeks. He was paying a lot to stay in this apartment complex, why were the walls so thin?

 

“And why don’t you ever check your phone? I tried to call you last night.”

 

“Call me?” Ritsu reached for his phone. The battery was almost dead. Between forgetting to charge it and generally not looking at it as much as he used to, he had simply stopped caring for the device recently. The dimly lit screen showed thirty missed calls. Exactly how many times did Takano think it was appropriate to call someone before giving up? Annoyed, he flipped open the list of missed calls. He would show it to Takano and tell him that three was the most number of times he could call Ritsu before realizing the man wasn’t around to pick up.

 

He looked at the list and stopped dead in his tracks. Takano’s name was at the top of his list and it only appeared two times. The rest were from his mother. His mother had been calling him almost all night and he had neglected to pick it up. He just hoped it wasn’t serious. He waited impatiently for the elevator to reach the bottom floor and sprang out. He would call her right then, he had no way of telling how long the charge in his phone would last and given his track record, he had quite possibly left his charger back in his apartment.

 

He noticed that Takano had gotten out after him and was standing next to the gates. He signaled at his phone, hoping the man would get the hint and leave ahead. But it looked as if Takano preferred to wait. The man had found a nice spot where the sun was shining and was relaxing.

 

“Hello, mother?”

 

The loud voice that rang through from the other end hurt Ritsu’s ears. “Ritsu! Where were you? Do you have any idea how worried I was?”

 

“I was working! Is everything okay?” He was used to his mother calling him at night, but almost thirty calls worried him.

 

“Everything’s fine. I just wanted to confirm that you would be attending the New Year’s celebration with us.”

 

“Mother, I always attend the New Year’s Celebration.” He felt confused, had she called him up just for that?

 

“Good, this year we’ll be hosting it in your grandfather’s house.”

 

“But that’s in the countryside!” Ritsu felt the words escaping from his lips before he could stop them

 

He heard a disapproving ‘tsk’ coming from the other line, “That’s why I’m telling you from before. Do you know how to get there?”

 

“More or less.” Takano was now closing his eyes as he soaked in the sun’s rays. It distracted Ritsu and he started paying less attention to what his mother was saying.

 

“I’ll send you the details later,” continued his mother, “and… call home more often.”

 

“Huh?” That snapped him back, “Mother.” But the line had gone dead. Maybe she had just wanted to hear his voice? Usually all she did was talk about him finding a new girl, but hearing her say those words made him happy. Life really was turning around. He flipped his phone shut and walked towards Takano, and it was then that his stomach pain came back. He had forgotten that he was supposed to wobble. Someone up there really hated him.

 

“Onodera!” Takano was standing next to him. The man reached out to hold his right hand to support him. With his other hand, Takano reached into his pocket and brought out a strip of medicine, “For your stomach. I wanted to give it to you last night.”

 

Ritsu was surprised but he reached out for the medicine anyway, “You could have just given it to me in the elevator.”

 

“You were busy staring at your phone.”

 

So he was staring at his phone while Takano stood ready with the medicine behind him? It made Ritsu want to laugh, but he held it back. But did that mean that Takano had been waiting all this time while he finished talking to his mother so he could give him this? Ritsu looked at the ground, with his hair covering his eyes and Takano too distracted with supporting him to see what he was doing, Ritsu smiled.

* * *

Work was still fast paced, and Ritsu was glad for whatever force had sent Takano with his medicine that day. It worked better than the stuff he usually took, he was seriously considering switching medications.

 

“Richchan!” Kisa appeared behind Ritsu, handing him a stack of papers, “This came for you just now.”

 

Ritsu lunged for the papers with one hand and the nearest marker he could find with the other. Yes! It was her, she had pulled through. Granted it was just a rough draft, there weren’t even any characters or properly drawn backgrounds in it. He would okay it, pass it through Takano and send it right back. There shouldn’t really be any problems with it, him and Takano had spent two hours discussing the concepts behind this piece with her.

 

“Kisa! Are you done?” Takano’s voice bellowed across the room and Kisa frantically shouted an, “Almost!” before plunging back into work.

 

Ritsu definitely hated year end crunches.

 

By the time Ritsu had finished sending the rough draft back to the author, it was just before lunch break. That had taken a bit more time than he had expected. There were some minor problems he and Takano had disagreed with, and after arguing back forth for a few minutes, Takano had sent him back to change the draft. That man was really a tyrant sometimes.

 

“Could somebody pick up some more paper? The fax machine’s run out.” Ritsu looked around the room, but there was no response. Everyone seemed busy with what they were doing. He would have to do it himself, during this time of the Emerald Cycle, it would not do to have a fax machine with no paper.

* * *

Ritsu rushed towards the office storeroom, he had to get back as soon as possible. He was expecting at least one final draft that day. With that checked, he would have at least one manuscript ready and one less hassle to have a nightmare about.

 

“Takano-san?” Ritsu noticed Takano walking towards him as he neared the storeroom. Wasn’t he just in the office?

 

Takano gave him a strange look but didn’t say anything.

 

“I’m just here to pick up some papers.” Ritsu nodded, acknowledging his presence and rushed inside the storeroom. Papers, papers, where were they? He finally noticed them on a pile just above his reach. He got on his tiptoes and tried to reach them. Who would carelessly put them up so high? Everyone needed them, and not everyone was blessed with Takano’s height!

 

Just as he managed to touch the edges of the stack with his hands, a hand stretched out and grabbed them, “Huh?” He quickly turned around. Takano? What was he doing here?

 

“I knew they were too high for you to reach.” Takano smirked as he held the stack of paper in his hands.

 

Was that man making fun of his height? “I could get it just fine!”

 

“Ah, is this how you treat someone who  goes out of their way to help you?” Takano gave him a disapproving look, he reached out to touch Ritsu’s hair but the younger man shoved his hands away.

 

“How did you know where they would be anyway?” He asked, still trying to swat at Takano’s hands. That man was relentless.

 

“I came to get some before.” Takano shrugged.

 

Ritsu glared at him before moving to grab the papers from Takano’s grasp. Once he had collected them, he started to leave the room.

 

“Won’t even thank me?” Takano whispered under his breath.

 

“Why should I thank you? You could’ve just told me you were going to get- what!?” Ritsu tried tugging at the doorknob again. But it wouldn’t budge.

 

“I wasn’t going to get what?” Takano’s voice came from right behind him.

 

Ritsu turned around, a frightened look in his eyes, “The door…” He gestured towards it.

 

“The door?” Takano reached out past Ritsu to try to open the door, but to no avail, “It looks like we’re locked in.” He finished

 

“Don’t look so casual about it!” Ritsu was getting aggravated. This was hardly the time to get locked inside the company storeroom with his boss!

 

“It’s fine, I’ll just…” Takano reached into his pants and looked surprised, “It must still be in my coat pocket.”

 

“Your phone?” Ritsu felt a sinking feeling enter his stomach. He was so used to it by now, he had practically forgotten what it felt like to not be stressed. He placed the pile of paper on the nearest shelf and reached into his own pants. He prayed it still had some charge, and with trembling fingers he flipped it open. A screen as dark as his mood greeted him. He glanced at Takano, the man had figured out what was happening and was grinning.

 

“Takano-san! This isn’t the time to laugh. What are we supposed to do about this?” Ritsu gestured at the door.

 

“Relax. During this time, everyone keeps coming to the storeroom. Someone is bound to notice that the door is locked and call for help.”

 

Ritsu was not prepared to be locked in the same room as the man he had the most tumultuous feelings for. He started banging on the door and calling out for help. After five minutes, he gave up. How was it possible for no one to have heard him? He turned around to glare at Takano. That man was responsible for this, he knew it! He felt his irritation rising.

 

“With everyone yelling loudly and being obsessed with their work, I’m not surprised they couldn’t hear you.” Takano shrugged, “Ono-Onodera?” He felt the younger man push him back slightly.

 

Ritsu tried to reach Takano’s pockets. He would not put it above the man to lock them in the same room as some kind of joke. Now was simply not the time! Ritsu felt around the man’s back pockets, but he couldn’t feel anything inside them. Right before he reached the front pockets of the man’s pants, he felt Takano cupping his hands, “What are you doing?” He shouted as he fell back against the door.

 

“I could ask you the same thing.” Takano had a glazed look in his eyes, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were trying to seduce me.”

 

Seduce? What part of checking someone’s pockets for hidden keys came off as seduction?

 

“I’m not!” He shouted back adamantly.

 

“No?” Takano moved closer to Ritsu. Before the younger man had any time to react, he felt lips on his own. He automatically closed his eyes and pressed his hands against Takano’s chest. Not here! It wasn’t safe. Ritsu tried to push the man back, but Takano leaned on him. Takano deepened the kiss and Ritsu could feel the older man’s tongue enter his mouth.

 

The more Ritsu tried to resist, the more persistent Takano became. He felt the older man’s hand move through his hair as the other hand rested on his hips. Ritsu tried to pull his head away, “Takano-san, please.” He wanted the man to stop. This was dangerous.

 

Takano looked at him again, and his eyes showed that he wasn’t ready to back off.

 

Takano moved his lips towards Ritsu’s neck, and his trail of breath made Ritsu shiver. Ritsu tried to cover his mouth as he felt a soft kiss on the nape of his neck, “Takano-san, stop.” The kisses trailed down from his neck to his collarbone and he felt his hands clutching on Takano’s shirt. A soft moan escaped his lips as the man bit down on him.

 

It was that point that Ritsu felt something pushing on him. The door? He panicked and started to trip as the door pushed him against Takano. The older man became startled as well, and by the time the door opened the two men were lying in a heap on the floor.

 

A loud gasp made Ritsu turn around. It was a girl who worked in the same floor. She was staring at them with one hand covering her mouth, “I…” She quickly turned around and ran away.

 

This was the absolute worst thing that could have happened. Ritsu gave Takano one last look before grabbing the papers and leaping outside the room before the doors closed again. How dare that man!

* * *

For the rest of the day Ritsu made sure to stay away from Takano. It wasn’t particularly hard, everyone was so enveloped in their work that he had no reason to be with Takano alone.

 

“Ah!” Kisa’s scream drew his attention to his side, “Where is Takano-san? I need him to check through this.” Kisa was looking around the mess in the room. Ritsu followed his gaze, really where had Takano gone? Ritsu was so engrossed in his work that he had never noticed the man leave the room.

 

“He was called out about an hour ago.” Hatori replied calmly from his seat

 

Called out? Ritsu looked back at his work, he was beginning to feel guilty. It couldn’t have had anything to do with their scene in the storeroom right? True, someone had run away after seeing them, but he had tried to put his mind past it. He could easily explain it away as just falling on top of the man when the door opened. And surely no one would go out of their way to complain about something they had no proof over? But one hour was a pretty long time.

 

With a million thoughts running through his mind, Ritsu once again found it hard to focus.

 

“Called out at this time?” Kisa sounded disappointed. He looked at the almost finished manuscript in his hands and looked back at Hatori. The man waved at him, “Bring it over, I’ll do a quick look through.” Kisa jumped out of his seat and went to Hatori.

 

Ritsu could vaguely hear them talking in the background. He shook his head, whatever it was he would deal with it when it became a real problem. He didn’t have any reason to believe that Takano had been called out for misdemeanor, so he held his guard. What was most important then was finishing his work.

 

But Ritsu kept a close eye at the door. When would Takano be back?

* * *

Takano had returned almost an hour after Ritsu became aware of his absence. So he had been gone from the office almost two hours? Ritsu was worried by the time the older man returned, but he had shown no change in his behaviour, and had gone right back to work.

Ritsu hoped that was a good sign.

 

Later that night, while they were leaving, he found himself alone with Takano again.If only he didn’t have so much work to do, he might have an excuse to not stay back quite so late. Takano hadn’t been acting any differently since he had gotten back, but Ritsu noticed that he was standing a little further than usual from him. He hadn’t made any movements to touch Ritsu at all, not even when they were alone in the elevator. The train ride back home had been jampacked full of people and he had lost sight of Takano. The curiosity was beginning to kill him; it really didn’t have anything to do with sexual misconduct at office, did it?

 

The first time he felt comfortable talking to Takano about that topic was when they were walking towards their building, “Takano-san, about today…”

 

“Hmm?” The man looked distracted

 

“Is everything okay?”

 

“Huh? What are you talking about?” Takano was looking at him, but his eyes gave the impression that he knew what he was talking about.

 

“Well… you were called out today. And you were gone pretty long, so I was wondering if it had something to do with…”

 

“It’s fine.” Takano interrupted him, “I’ve taken care of it.” The man reached out his hands and slightly ruffled Ritsu’s hair

 

“Takano-san! Stop that.” Ritsu wasn’t sure what Takano meant by that. Taken care of what? What had he been called out for? He felt as if the man had just evaded his question. It made him uncomfortable to pursue the topic any further. For the rest of the journey, neither of them spoke about work.

* * *

The next week had flown by in a rush. The final drafts were beginning to flow in, and there was so much work to be done. Between finishing the typesets, adding tones where Takano felt something should be done and going through the color copies, Ritsu barely had any time to breathe. Everything felt normal, everything except the part here Takano had been leaving the office for almost an hour every day. It was not like the man to leave work behind if something wasn’t important.

 

Was he being called out again?

 

Takano had said that it was nothing important, but this strange anomaly had become almost a regular occurrence. Kisa and Mino had brought it up as well, but Hatori had always been the one to come up and say that he was simply meeting the Executive Managing Director. What was he doing meeting that man every day? Not knowing bothered Ritsu, and Takano’s refusal to make him privy to the information irritated him.

Why wasn’t he allowed to know? It was obvious Hatori knew what was going on, so why couldn’t he be told as well? Why was it that when it came to everything including work Takano expected Ritsu to tell him everything, but he himself lost no chance to treat Ritsu like a subordinate. He knew that was exactly what they were, but Takano had made him feel as if there was something more special between them, that he could be trusted with important information. He wanted to know what was going on in that man’s life and once again he was left thinking that he hardly knew Takano Masamune at all.

 

He could feel his irritation rise as Takano made his way back into the room and scowl settled on his face. He would find out what was going on. He would sneak after Takano and figure out what was really happening. The timing was too coincidental to not have anything to do with the storeroom. He had no idea what they were talking about everyday, and ideas he had initially found absurd – such as the thought of Takano giving special favours to the Executive Managing Director to keep his job – were feeling more real to him by the minute. He refused to let this continue.

 

“Onodera!” A whack on the head made him turn around. Takano was standing there with a manuscript in his hands, looking very irritated, “I said, have you finished your proposal yet?”

 

Ritsu silently ruffled through the papers on his desk and brought out the required paperwork. He handed it over to Takano, and turned back to his work. Takano had made him redo that at least ten times, especially since it was for the author who had almost defaulted less than a week back. Ritsu wanted it to be better than just ‘good’. He would push up the sales, no matter what.

 

He heard Takano give a low grunt of approval and with that, the two men went back to work.

* * *

Three days later, Onodera Ritsu felt fried.

 

He was finally done with his backlog. And he had been moving at such speed that he had finally run out of things to do. He was probably the only person in that situation since Kisa was going crazy next to him, and Mino and Hatori had left the office to collect finished manuscripts from their respective authors. Takano was busy working in his chair, and for the first time in a while, Ritsu found that he had the time to observe the man work.

 

“Richchan, if you’re done, can you help me with this?” Kisa pleaded and piled papers on top of his table

 

“What? Ah, okay.” It felt good to do someone else’s work for a change. Kisa was managing more authors than he was, so he understood the man’s pain. Three was bad enough for Ritsu.

 

Just maybe, he wasn’t in the wrong line of work after all.

* * *

After lunch break, Takano was nowhere to be seen.

 

Ritsu felt his irritation rise again, he felt sure that if he asked anyone in the room the answer would be ‘the Executive Managing Director’s office’ Well, for once he had enough time in his hands to go and try and figure out what was happening. If Takano was indeed being punished for sexual misconduct, then Ritsu should have been questioned first. It’s not like he made any complaints to the Human Resources, and constantly pulling the editor-in-chief out right before the year end deadlines was unreasonable. That, and he was sure that Takano would try to help him if he was in the same boat.

 

He quietly excused himself the office, Kisa was too busy to notice and Mino was just coming back. He walked straight towards the elevator. His heart was thumping in his chest, why didn’t Takano come to him when something had happened? After all his big talks on being in love with Ritsu and heavily implying that he wanted to be in an exclusive relationship with him, did the man think that relationships were a one way street?

 

The closer the elevator got to his destination, the more he began to feel sick. He felt angry, betrayed, irritated and a small twinge of what he refused to admit was ‘fear’. He slowly walked out of the elevator. Maybe this hadn’t been a good idea after all. But he kept walking towards the EMD’s office. He was sure all the thoughts flowing through his head was just him coming up with worst case scenarios. One hand reflexively went to his stomach as he lifted his hands to knock on the door.

 

Muffled voices from inside drew his attention. He brought his ears closer to the door and stopped to listen. He could feel a blush forming on his cheeks, what was he doing eavesdropping? He was just glad that the floor was empty, people still hadn’t returned from their lunch break. Everyone wanted to rest a bit, especially since the cycle was coming to a close.

 

“What do you mean?” Takano’s voice rang through the door. The loud tone made Ritsu almost jump in his spot, and he accidentally ended up knocking on the door. Oh no.

 

The voices inside  paused then said, “Come in.”

 

With trembling hands, he opened the door and poked his head through, “Excuse me.”

 

“Onodera?” Takano was standing near the door. He looked startled to see Ritsu.

 

Other than Takano and Isaka, there were three other men in the room, Yokozawa was one of them. Ritsu couldn’t recognize the last two, “Uh… I was uh… looking for Takano-san.” Towards the end of his sentence, his voice had fallen to a low whisper. Had he interrupted some kind of meeting?

 

“Well, if you’ll excuse me.” Takano walked out of the room and closed the door. He started walking towards the elevator when he noticed that Ritsu was still frozen in place, “Onodera, come on.” He grabbed Ritsu by the scruff of his neck and pulled him along.

 

Well, at least Ritsu was almost sure there weren’t any sexual favours involved. Once they were alone in the elevator, he whispered, “I’m sorry.”

 

“For what? I’m glad you came.” Takano was looking annoyed, he rested his back against the back of the elevator and stared straight ahead.

 

“You are?”

 

“He was thinking of merging Emerald with another department.” Takano sounded angry again

 

Ritsu looked shocked, “What? Why?”

 

“I don’t know and I don’t care. But it’s not happening.”

 

“Uh… is that alright? He’s in charge of the company and…”

 

“I’m in charge of Emerald.” Takano finished, “I didn’t come to work here so he could  disrupt everything I did and fuse us with a completely unrelated department.”

 

“Oh?” Ritsu looked around the elevator, Takano was suddenly telling him everything, and despite the fact that even an hour back he had been annoyed  about Takano keeping secrets, he was so taken aback he wasn’t sure how to react, “Well, maybe it’s a good thing. You know, we never have enough people and…”

 

Takano sent him a look that made him stop talking, “Are you saying you would be comfortable with teaching a whole new bunch of people how to do your work?”

 

“Huh? No. I mean…”

 

Takano sighed, “If I want more people to work at Emerald, then I’ll interview them myself.”

 

The elevator stopped at their floor and Takano got out, “Onodera?” He turned around to look at the man. Ritsu was standing in the elevator with his head down and his fists clenched, “You took me.”

 

“I took you because you had a good resume, not because I’m obligated to do everything the higher ups tell me. You’ve been working here for a while now, and from where I’m standing, it looks to me as if I’ve made the right choice.” Takano grabbed Ritsu’s hands and dragged him out of the elevator. As a matter of fact, Takano  _was_ obligated to do what he was told, but he would rather not bring that up right then. 

 

He continued to drag the man all the way back to their office, “Takano-san.” Ritsu tugged at his hand, “People are watching.”

 

Takano didn’t reply, but tightened his grip around Ritsu’s hand.

 

Hatori’s voice greeted them as they entered the office, “How was it?”

 

“I was pulled out before I could get angry.” Takano pointed towards Ritsu.

 

Hatori nodded and sat down.

 

So Hatori had known about this? Takano had been going to that room almost every day to fight for the office. Ritsu  hadn’t known how protective Takano was about Emerald; he knew the man had dragged it out from the bottom and  rocketed it to the top but even though he had wondered how that was possible, he had always chalked everything up to Takano simply being good at his job. This side of the man was new to him, new yet strangely familiar.

 

Takano sighed as he went back to his seat. Kisa was giving Ritsu a confused look, and he was uncertain about whether he should let the man know.

 

“Onodera, finish this.” Takano was pointing to the pile of paper on Ritsu’s desk.

 

“Yes.” Ritsu jumped back into his seat and immediately got back to work. That was Takano telling him not to talk, and he would respect that.

* * *

Towards the end of the day, Takano had come to Ritsu’s desk, “We have to go back after work.”

 

“Huh?” Ritsu wanted to continue, but Takano gave him a look that said they would talk about it afterwards.

 

By the time they were near Isaka’s office, Ritsu couldn’t hold his curiosity anymore, “Takano-san, why are we…?”

“He called us.”

 

That was not a good sign. Were they going to be reprimanded for leaving the meeting so abruptly?

 

He watched as Takano knocked on the door and made his way inside. Ritsu followed. Isaka was the only person in the room, and he sat there looking cheerfully at them both, “I’m glad to see you made it.”

 

Takano closed the door behind them and stood defiantly. Isaka chuckled at the man’s response, “You really don’t want this do you?”

 

“I have already stated why.” Takano’s voice didn’t betray any emotions, but the tension in the room was enough to make Ritsu want to shrink back against the wall.

 

“Yes, but I still have the final say.”

 

A snort from Takano made Ritsu jump. He wasn’t sure it was a good idea to be so openly disapproving in front of the Company Head.

 

“Ah well, I was doing this for Emerald. I was sure you needed more employees, didn’t you complain to me before about how much work there was and how little time.”

 

“Pardon my words, but I don’t complain to my superiors.” Ritsu could vouch for that despite never being there, it wasn’t like Takano to complain about work.

 

Isaka leaned back in his chair and sighed, “Well, the Sales Department seems to agree with you.” Takano looked a little surprised, “Though I suppose that has nothing to do with your personal connections.” 

 

The tension in the room was getting thicker. Ritsu knew Takano would not say anything untoward, or at least he hoped.

 

“I really don’t see why you’re so against having new employees.” Isaka continued, “Your team is overworked.” Isaka looked at Ritsu as he finished.

 

What? Was he supposed to say something? He absolutely did not want anything to do with this conversation.

 

“New employees are fine, merging us with an unrelated department that are used to working on a different genre is not.” Takano’s voice sounded a little strained.

 

Isaka shrugged, “It was just a suggestion I was looking into.”

 

So Isaka hadn’t planned to go through with it? It did seem strange to him that a man working at the head of a successful publishing house might decide to do something so suddenly without approval from both the teams. He looked at Takano and his eyes narrowed, Takano didn’t look surprised at all. So he had known all along. The reason why no one but he and Hatori were aware of this was because they had known this idea would not pull through. So what was the point of coming here every day to argue his case?

 

“But I appreciate your efforts.” Isaka placed his hands on his desk and smiled, “Onodera-kun, I wanted to congratulate you on your proposal.”

 

“Excuse me, what?” Ritsu blinked. What proposal? The one he had given Takano the other day.

 

“Of course it still needs to go through a meeting, but it was useful looking through the documents beforehand. It helped that Yokozawa was here as well.”

 

At this point Ritsu was completely confused, what had Takano been doing exactly? He turned to stare suspiciously at the man.

 

“What? I used it as an example of how we operated.” He looked completely unapologetic about showing his boss Ritsu’s proposal without asking him first, “I had passed it already, so I knew there wouldn’t be any problems.” Ritsu was once again reminded why he found that man annoying.

 

“Now now…” Isaka waved his hands in the air, as if consoling two fighting children, “Here’s what I suggest. You can see how Emerald handles the new workload for a trial period of six months, and if things don’t work out, look into having new team members.”

 

“New work load?” Ritsu felt dizzy, too much was happening too fast.

 

“We’re starting a new bi-monthly issue.” Takano shrugged, “He wants us to create a new issue aimed at older audiences.”

 

“Yes, new audiences.” Isaka nodded, “Do you think you can do it?”

 

Takano nodded. Ritsu stared on despairingly. As if getting one issue out in a month wasn’t bad enough, two was going to be hell.

 

“Before you leave, Onodera-kun.” Isaka smiled at him, “If you need your editor-in-chief, be sure to call him first next time, okay?”

 

Ritsu felt evil intentions floating in through the smiles. He quickly nodded, bowed and as soon as Takano opened the door he all but dashed out.

 

“I’ll see you after New Year.” Isaka called out after him

 

“Huh? Why?” Ritsu turned around.

 

“We’re throwing a party to celebrate the new year. I’ve already told your father, but please, I want you to be there as well.”

 

Ritsu bowed one last time before moving away from the door. He wasn’t entirely sure why Isaka had called him inside, was it just to reprimand him and then invite him to a party all within a span of five minutes? Takano was looking amused, and the arrogant smile on his face drove Ritsu’s confusion away, “If you have something to say, you should say it.” He glared at the man

 

“Being a spoiled son of a successful publishing house does have its perks.” He started laughing loudly.

 

“Huh? What?” Ritsu’s glare became even more fierce

 

“I’m saying I’ve seen people being shot down for much less. It was never all smiles either.”Takano stopped laughing to look at Ritsu.

 

Ritsu wasn’t sure how to deal with that statement. Was he trying to be mean? He didn’t sound like it, he didn’t look like he was trying to make Ritsu feel bad either. And he had said it all to the man’s face.

 

“Don’t worry about it; I’ll make sure no one goes easy on you in the office.” Takano smirked as he started to walk towards the elevator.

 

 “Takano-san!” Ritsu felt frustrated as he chased after the man. It was somewhat true, ever since he had started working at Emerald, nothing about his job had been easy. It didn’t help that Takano demanded perfection from everyone, but Ritsu felt that that was what had helped him come along so far in a line of work he had no prior experience in.

* * *

Isaka sighed in his office, did those two have to flirt just outside his door? That made pushing aside the complaint he had received from Human Resources that much harder.

 

He hoped he had gotten through to Takano though. He must maintain a distance from his personal life at work, or there could be consequences. Takano had said that he understood, and Isaka was fine with that. It gave him what he needed as well, now that he had a reliable person looking into producing a Josei magazine along with a Shoujo one, the company might be able to make profits from this.

 

He would first have to see if Emerald could gather enough authors to make an issue. He would know if it was possible by the end of six months, and if it wasn’t, he could try meeting with other departments. Takano really overworked his team members. Isaka wondered if that was how he had managed to turn Onodera Ritsu into one of the team’s assets. Isaka lightly tugged at Ritsu’s project proposal, his father would be pleased to hear about this.

* * *

Ritsu had a billion questions that he wanted to ask Takano, but the minute that had entered their office, it was work all over again.

 

By the time they were leaving the office, he was too tired to even talk. That, and he simply couldn’t fathom how going to work and back had become something he did with Takano every day. His life was quickly turning into a romantic drama and he was feeling more and more flustered with the situation. Why was Takano keeping so many secrets from him? And why was it okay to tell Hatori about the possibility of a new issue being released but not him?

 

“Onodera, I know I’ve told you this before, but if you don’t stop scowling all the time, your face might just end up changing into that.” Takano prodded at his forehead as the rounded the corner towards their apartment, “Not that I’m sure you wouldn’t mind.”

“I would!” Ritsu shouted before trying to grab on to the man’s hand, “And stop doing that… ah…” Ritsu finished with a sneeze. Takano was looking slightly annoyed as he brought out a handkerchief and started wiping his hands on it, “I am sure none of that touched you! And even if it did, it’s your own fault!” Ritsu was scrambling for his own handkerchief, but a part of him felt deeply satisfied with the sudden sneeze.

 

“Sure.” Takano smirked, “Careless accident.”

 

Ritsu nodded furiously before plunging his face into the piece of cloth. Was he coming down with a cold? This was the absolute worst time to get sick. There was still work to be done, and the Year End parties and then… he dreaded the thought of going home. He wanted to see his parents, but the thought of being introduced to women bothered him. His mother simply refused to realize that this was a part of his life he wanted no interference in.

 

“Do you want to drink with me today?” Takano asked him as they passed in front of a convenience Store

 

“Why would I want to do that? I’m going to go home and sleep,” Ritsu said as his stomach growled slightly.

 

Takano laughed at the sound, “More bento for dinner?”

 

Ritsu was actually planning on skipping, but he wasn’t going to tell him that, “You could just have dinner at my place. I’ll make something.”

 

There was a small blush forming on Ritsu’s cheeks. It was the cold weather, he was sure of it.

 

“Fine, it’s decided.” Takano flung his bag over his shoulders and started walking ahead of Ritsu.

 

Startled, Ritsu picked up his pace, “Please don’t decide things for yourself!” Well, at least he wasn’t going to have to skip dinner. He didn’t want to risk eating the last bento he had in his house, not after the stomach ache  from that morning. With bright red cheeks and throbbing heart, Ritsu followed Takano home.

* * *

Ritsu had gone home first. Takano had convinced him to take a bath, and the hot water had made him feel good. The dizzy feeling he had been experiencing all day was slowly disappearing. He was still bewildered by what happened at work, but he felt excited at the same time. It might be fun doing something new for the new magazine, and he needed all the experience he could get if he wanted to reach Takano’s level some day.

 

By the time he was knocking in front of Takano’s apartment, it was already 10 PM. He would not spend the night here, he kept repeating to himself. They had work tomorrow, and the last thing he wanted to do was think about Takano all day.

 

“You’re late,” Takano said as he opened the door. Ritsu wanted to reply, but the smell of good food distracted him.

 

Dinner had been good. Who knew something as simple as miso soup, grilled fish and rice would make for such a satisfying dinner? He felt calm after eating, and a little more confident as well. Takano was sitting in front of him with a can of beer in his left hand. Ritsu had refused to drink, his throat had been hurting somewhat and he didn’t want to aggravate his health any further.

 

He slurped down the last bit of soup before looking at Takano. The man was staring at him with a glazed look in his eyes, “Takano-san?”

 

“Hmm?” The man replied before taking another sip from his can

“I-uh… thank you for the dinner. I think I’ll be going home now.” He bowed before quickly standing up.

 

Just as he was walking past Takano towards the door, he felt the man grab onto his shirt sleeve, “Stay.”

 

“Huh? I can’t. We have work tomorrow.” Ritsu tried to pull at his sleeve, but the grip was too strong, “Also if I am developing a cold, I don’t want to give it to you.”

 

A sharp pull made him fall towards Takano, and before he could blink he felt the man’s lips on his own. Ritsu tried to pull away. “Takano-san, I might be catching a cold!”

 

“I don’t care.” The man replied, “I’ve been holding back at work all day.”

 

Holding back? Since when did Takano hold back?

 

“Takano-san!” Ritsu pulled himself back from where he was sitting on the floor, “You’ve been acting weird all day. Please don’t tell me you invited me for dinner just so you could do this.”

 

Takano looked bewildered; he loosened his grip on Ritsu’s sleeve and leaned back in his chair. Hiding his face in his hands, he laughed softly, “That’s not why...”

 

“Are you okay?” This strange reaction bothered Ritsu. Had he said something odd?

 

“Four days ago I was called to the office because someone reported me for indecency at work.” Takano continued.

 

Ritsu reached for the can in the man’s hands and tried to move it. Four cans down, Takano seemed drunk. He had never seen the older man like this. Reported him for indecency? Ritsu’s fears had rung true after all, but then why didn’t Isaka bring it up when they were in his office together?

 

Takano tried to pull the can away from Ritsu but the younger man grabbed on to it and took it away, “I think you’ve had too much to drink.” With the can in his hands, he sat down again, “You told me you were going there to talk about the departments being merged.” Takano had misled him again.

 

Takano removed his hands and looked at Ritsu. He was looking a bit flushed, “I was, afterwards.”

 

“Takano-san!” Ritsu slammed his hands on the table, “How am I supposed to know what’s going on in your life if you don’t tell me?” He felt all the anger and confusion he had welled up inside of him for so long come out at one go, “You keep telling me I should tell you what’s bothering me, but you never do the same. Why was it okay to tell Hatori-san about the new issue but not me?” He hated himself, he was somehow making this all about himself and he wished he had never opened his mouth.

 

Takano was staring at him, his mouth slightly open in shock, “I… didn’t want to worry you.”

 

“But I am worried! Who complained? Why? Why didn’t you tell me?”

 

“I took care of it.” Takano finished, sitting up straight on his chair, “Besides, I don’t have to tell you everything about work.”

 

Ritsu grew even angrier upon hearing this, “Of course. Because I’m your subordinate, I have to report every little detail in my life to you, but when something happens to you, I’m supposed to quietly sit down and accept whatever you say or do because it’s not my place to talk.”

 

“I…” Takano searched for things to say, but nothing came to his mouth

 

“Will you please tell me what happened?”

 

Takano sighed, “The first time he called me it was about what had happened in the storeroom. Apparently whoever had seen us had gone to Human Resources to complain. I was called and told that using the storeroom for our private use was unacceptable.”

 

“But we were locked in!”

 

Takano nodded, “I explained that, and Isaka-san said he would look into it. However, it wasn’t the first time someone had seen us. He told me to keep a professional distance from you at work.” Ritsu stared on, so far everything seemed fine, “And then he docked my pay for this month because he needed to show HR that he had done something.”

 

Ritsu felt severely guilty, maybe if he went and spoke to Isaka? A sudden realization hit him and he stared at the floor, was it possible that Isaka had covered everything up because of his father? That would explain why he didn’t bring it up when they were in his office.

 

“And then he decided that as my punishment I should accept responsibility for the new magazine that was being discussed recently at staff meetings.” Here Takano snorted, “It seemed like a good way to push work onto me. But then when he brought up the idea of bringing in people from another department to join Emerald, and that was the last straw. If I am going to do this, it’s going to be on my terms.”

 

“Uh, Takano-san, I think you got off pretty lightly.” Ritsu looked a bit sheepish, he didn’t want to admit that he had a vague suspicion as to how the man got away with it so easily, but he didn’t want to bring up anything he couldn’t confirm either.

 

Takano glared at Ritsu, “Yes, thanks to you.” Ritsu stiffened where he sat. So Takano was aware after all.

 

“Oh…” Ritsu nervously looked away from the man. He had explained everything Ritsu wanted to know, but that didn’t make him any less uncomfortable. Ritsu wondered exactly how much of his life his father was aware of. Did he know about Takano? At this at point, he wouldn’t put it past Isaka to tell him. But his mother hadn’t called enquiring after them, so even if his father knew he hadn’t told her. But why hadn’t he? The more he thought it about, the more unpleasant the idea of meeting his family for the New Year celebration became. He brought Takano’s unfinished can to his lips and took a large swig. The new year was starting out horrifically for him.

 

“Onodera.”

 

Ritsu looked at the man, he looked okay. Takano had  not really betrayed any emotion over the past few days. If he hadn’t come out and said it, Ritsu would have never guessed. The fact that he had now actually told him left him surprised as well. He was expecting Takano to steer the topic away and talk about something else.

 

“Stay with me tonight.” Takano finished.

 

“Wh-what?” Ritsu got up to leave, “Maybe some other time.”

 

Takano sighed and placed a hand over his eyes. He looked so tired, Ritsu felt bad leaving right then. The man seemed almost lonely.

 

“I’ll stay.”

 

Takano looked at him, his eyes betraying no emotion. Ritsu being indecisive was something he was aware of since they were in high school. He had changed far less than he thought he had. Sure he was more snarky now, and always saying things that infuriated Takano, but Ritsu was still Ritsu.

 

“What are you smiling at?” Ritsu was looking at him suspiciously, “I’ll stay, but on one condition. We don’t do ‘that’ tonight.” Here his eyes narrowed.

 

“’That’?” Takano started laughing. How old was this man?

 

“Shut up.” Ritsu snapped as he walked towards the kitchen. He poured himself a new bowl of miso soup and went back and sat down, “And no more drinking.”

* * *

Why was everything so bright?

 

Ritsu groaned as he opened his eyes, had they forgotten to close the curtains the night before? He tried to move out of the bed, he was going to close the curtains before going back to sleep. Except he couldn’t move. He tried wriggling his shoulders, but a dissatisfied grunt from behind him thwarted his efforts. Takano held on to him tighter as he struggled to break loose.

 

“Takano-san, how long do you intend to hold me like this?” He struggled a little more, but his efforts were in vain, “I’m not a side pillow.” He yelped slightly as he felt Takano place his legs on top of his body. He wasn’t going to be allowed to leave the bed any time soon. Ritsu yawned, he was still drowsy. With his free hand, he tried to reach for the bedside table. He needed to check the time, and thankfully Takano’s phone was usually full of charge.

 

He flipped open the phone and screamed, “We’re going to be late!”

 

Takano loosened his grip and stuffed his head under the pillow. “Takano-san! Wake up! Did you hear me?” Finally free from Takano’s embrace, Ritsu leapt out of bed and started grabbing his clothes. So much for not doing anything that night. He should have known better than to trust Takano.

 

“I’m leaving.” With his pants finally on, Ritsu turned to look at the figure still sleeping peacefully in the bed. He then promptly walked over to the window and pulled the curtains apart until the whole room shone brightly from the morning rays.

 

Takano’s muffled groans amused Ritsu. He finally sat up on his head and placed one hand on his forehead, “My head hurts.”

 

“Well, I told you to stop drinking,”  said Ritsu as he grabbed his coat, “I’m going home now.”

 

“Hn.”

* * *

Work was less stressful that day, the cycle was finally coming to a close. The news of releasing a new issue had initially sent Kisa into a small panic, but he eventually rose to the challenge. Takano and Hatori had already been working on scouting new artists and everyone agreed that they would wait to see how the first issue turned out before deciding on adding new members to the editorial department.

 

By the end of the week, Ritsu was on the way to drop things off at the Printers. With work finally over, he finally had time to call home. He flipped open his phone and stared. This was not good, Takano’s birthday was one day away and in that entire flurry, he had completely forgotten about it. Well, not completely. He had thought about what Takano might want as a present, but the man hadn’t brought up the day at all, and Ritsu didn’t know what to say without being cajoled into spending the day with him.

 

His sneezing had gotten worse and he now definitely had a cold. He didn’t want to spend Takano’s birthday coughing into a white mask and praying the man didn’t get sick.

 

By the time he reached the office, Takano was the only one there, “They left to get a drink. I told them we would join them after you came back.”

 

“Takano-san, you could have just texted me and told me where to go.” Ritsu’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the man

 

“I still had work, so I thought we could go together.” Takano looked bored, “And you haven’t cleaned up your desk yet.”

 

Ritsu looked at the mess of papers on his table; he didn’t feel like cleaning it up. His head throbbed so badly that he just wanted to lie down wherever he could and go to sleep, “I think I’ll pass on getting drinks.” He said as he leaned against the table, he was feeling dizzy again.

 

Takano walked towards him, with his coat on and the room dark, he was already prepared to leave, “Are you okay? Do you want me to take you home?”

 

“I can go home alone just fine.” Ritsu said, sitting down . He placed his head on the table, the coolness of it made him feel slightly better. The medicines weren’t working, his coughing was a little more contained, but the headache just kept getting worse.

 

“Don’t be silly, come on, I’ll take you home.”

 

“No.” Ritsu instinctively reached out his hand to stop Takano from touching him, “They’re expecting you to have drinks with them. What kind of an editor-in… ugh.” He brought his hands to his head. He had just barely gotten back in shape. He should never have volunteered to go. Takano had wanted to, but it was originally Ritsu’s job and he had had enough of letting people cover up for his mistakes that month.

 

He heard Takano sigh deeply, “Come on.” The man placed two hands on his shoulders and tried to help him up, but Ritsu swatted him away.

 

“Not here. I can walk fine by myself.” He knew they were under the HR’s eyes and wouldn’t give them even a stray chance of catching them, even if it wasn’t anything strange. He stood up, his knees were feeling wobbly and promptly sat back down again.

 

“Sit down, I’ll clean up your desk.” Takano pushed Ritsu’s swivel chair slightly back to make room for him to work. After he was done, he brought Ritsu’s bag and softly called out his name.

 

Ritsu nodded and stood up.

 

It wasn’t until they were on the train ride home in a half empty train that Ritsu felt himself relax. He wasn’t sure when, but he had fallen asleep leaning on Takano’s shoulder. A light tap on his head when they reached their stop woke him up from his slumber, and for the rest of the walk back home he felt Takano stick closely by his side.

 

Right as he was about to enter his apartment, the man stopped him, “Are you sure you want to spend the night alone?”

 

Ritsu nodded as he put the key inside the door lock. He really just wanted to sleep. Bathing, eating, changing his clothes and anything else his mind sent him to remind him of a proper nightly routine could be damned. He was grateful that Takano had not tried to stop him. He stumbled his way around the apartment, he would definitely get around to cleaning his place – someday. As soon as he found his bed, he collapsed on it and went to sleep.

* * *

By the time he woke up, the sun was shining brightly and his head felt ready to burst. His phone had been vibrating in his pockets for quite some time, and he was beginning to get fed up of it. He supposed he was grateful to whatever forces out there stalled this painful excuse for an illness till after his workload was finished, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t ready to call quits on his life and spend the rest of eternity sleeping.

 

He slowly reached for his phone and flipped it open. Of course it was Takano. The phone started ringing again and he picked it up, “Hello?”

 

“I’m coming over now. Is your door open?”

 

“I don’t know.” Ritsu pushed his head into the pillow, “I’m sick, please don’t come over.”

 

“That’s exactly why I’m coming over.” Within minutes, he heard someone knocking on his door. Ritsu groaned into his pillow, he did not want to get up to let the man in. Why  had he remembered to lock it?

 

He slipped out of his bed and went towards the door. Leaning on it, he undid the lock and opened it.

 

“You look horrible.” Takano said when he saw him

 

“Well excuse me for not being pretty when I’m this ill.” Ritsu glared as the man let himself in, “I’m going back to bed now.”

 

“At least take off your clothes.” Takano said, but Ritsu tried to not pay any attention to him. In his fevered state of mind, those words morphed themselves into something not very innocent and made him feel weird.

 

“You look flushed.” The man was standing next to Ritsu, holding out a hand in support.

 

“It’s just the fever!” Ritsu shot back before he realized what he’d said. His head was too muddled to make any sense of how he felt and he took Takano’s hands. Together, they made their way to his bed where he lay down to rest.

 

Or at least he tried to rest. He somehow couldn’t sleep with Takano in the room; he just wanted to watch the man. Takano hadn’t done anything though, between checking Ritsu’s temperature with a thermometer and handing him medicines, Takano had been pretty quiet for the better part of the day. Towards the afternoon, Ritsu had tried to read a book and Takano had taken it upon himself to clean the room.

 

Ritsu had tried to protest, but the thought of clean clothes that he didn’t have to take the trouble of putting in the laundry himself eventually won him over. When he decided he couldn’t read, he fell asleep again. Takano woke him up during lunch time, the rice porridge tasted good, and even though Takano made him eat more than he wanted to, his headache was slowly beginning to subside.

 

It was evening when Ritsu realized that Takano had no intention of leaving, “Are you going to spend the night here?”

 

“I’ll go back after dinner if you want me to, but I’m taking your keys.” Ritsu glared in response, “Or do you want to drag yourself out of bed to let me in, in the morning?”

 

In the morning… Ritsu felt his eyes go wide. Tomorrow was Takano’s birthday! Forget about a present, Ritsu wasn’t even sure he could leave his bed, “I’ll be fine by myself.”

 

“Don’t be silly. How do you expect me to leave you in that state?” Takano’s sounded as if he was scolding Takano

 

“But tomorrow is your birthday.”

 

Takano looked surprised, “Is it?” He looked at the date on his cell phone, “So what?”

 

“You should be spending it getting pampered yourself.” Ritsu hid his face under the blanket, “Not looking after someone else.”

 

He could hear Takano laughing and it infuriated him. Eventually the laughter stopped and he felt the man moving his blanket to reveal his face, “If it makes you happy, then you can spend a whole day pampering me after you get better.” Takano’s face was dangerously close to his.

 

Ritsu stared at the man before saying, “Takano-san, you might want to step back. I feel like sneezing.” He chuckled internally as Takano shrank back slightly after hearing that.

 

Takano looked a little peeved when the sneeze never came, “So I’m taking your keys then.” And with that, the man quickly snatched the keys from where Ritsu had placed them on top of the drawer. Ritsu didn’t have the energy to protest.

 

They mostly spent the day reading books. Ritsu had at one point started picking up the books Takano was going through, and old high school memories of how he used to do the same annoyed him. Between sleeping and watching Takano reading, Ritsu had a peaceful day.

 

They ate reheated rice porridge for dinner, and afterwards Takano checked Ritsu’s temperature, “It doesn’t look like it’s gone down. Maybe you should see a doctor.”

 

Ritsu waved the idea away, “It’s just been a day.” Takano hadn’t looked happy at the idea, but he didn’t argue. He gave Ritsu another paracetamol, and once was sure the man was sleeping, he moved towards the door leading out of the apartment. Just as he turned off the light, he heard the younger man whisper, “Happy birthday.”

 

Takano felt a smile tugging at his lips as he opened the door and made his way into the light in the hallway.

* * *

Ritsu had a hard time sleeping. He kept checking his phone all night for reasons he himself could not begin to fathom. Was he expecting Takano to call him in the middle of the night? So he could wish him happy birthday all over again?

 

His illness increased his feelings. He wanted more than anything to give something to Takano for his birthday, and it looked like his old dream of exchanging presents across a table with a cake in between them had been shot to hell once more. He groaned as he stuffed his face into his pillow. It was true that he was feeling better than he had the day before, but even if he wanted to, he couldn’t exactly leave the house in the middle of the night to go shopping. Even if he wanted to have something delivered, he was pretty sure no one was going to deliver on the same day, especially during the Christmas holidays. Damn Takano for being born at such an inconvenient time of the year!

 

He needed to stop thinking about it. He turned in his bed and tried to sleep.

 

After a few hours, he was furious. Sleep had abandoned him, and a dumb idea had just entered his head. He checked his head, it was 4 AM. Takano would probably be back by 7 in the morning, 9 at the latest. That gave him a little more than three hours to prepare his gift.

 

He sat up in his bed. Dare he try? He was a horrible cook, and he wasn’t confident about baking a cake. Especially given that he hadn’t fully recovered. But he wanted to do it, if for nothing else then just so that he could stop worrying and get some sleep.

 

Ritsu waddled over to his small kitchen. As expected it was empty, the bento he had been avoiding for days was now missing, Takano must have thrown it out during his cleaning spree. There was still a little rice porridge left though and Ritsu was feeling hungry.

* * *

Ritsu was grateful that he had decided to live near a 24/7  supermarket, or his plan would have failed miserably. Sure it was a twenty minute walk and the convenience store was much nearer, but he was willing to risk it that morning. He dressed warm, grabbed his wallet and left his apartment.

 

He wrapped his coat tightly around his body and grabbed a small basket near the entrance. He should be able to find something here that would help him make a small, basic cake.

 

By the time Ritsu left the store, he was carrying two bags full of food, and a third with a bottle of wine in it. He had bought doubles of almost everything, he had no confidence in his cooking, and he had never successfully baked a cake before. He could almost hear Takano shouting at him in the morning for not resting when he was weak, but he had tried, and in the end, his childhood self had managed to score one victory.

 

“This is not a cake.” Ritsu stared in dismay at the final product. It looked more like a gigantic cookie than a cake. He glanced back at his laptop, what had he done wrong this time?

 

After two more tries, he had managed to make a decent sponge cake. He felt guilty about all the horror cakes that were piling up on his kitchen counters, he would make sure to at least try to eat them later. Or maybe not.

 

“Next.” Ritsu mumbled as he went back to look at the recipe. He now had to finish making the cream that would line the cake. Also how was he supposed to turn a rectangular cake into a circle? He stared on in dismay as he realized that not having the right mould had made things more difficult for him. He could just present a rectangular cake, but he didn’t want to.

 

After perusing over half a dozen videos online, he finally found something that might work. He just had to cut the cake so that they fit around each other. He could pull this off! But he felt hesitant, he just had one shot at this. Ritsu carefully cut the cake into the required proportions. He placed the smallest piece in the center, and picked up the piece he had selected to surround it. He smothered the sweet cream on one side and layered the sliced strawberries on top of the cream and carefully placed it around the center. Once he saw that it fit alright, he breathed a sigh of relief. He got to work with the rest of the cake. By the time he had finished, he had created a form of a Strawberry Sponge Roll Cake. Now all he had to do was liberally add cream all around it so that it covered the layers. He was grateful that he had bought more than what the original recipe required, it looked like things were going to work out after all.

 

He looked at his cake admiringly, it looked good. Sure it was a teensy bit lopsided on one side, but overall it looked like a pretty picture to him. The only thing left was to decorate the top of the cake with strawberries.

 

When he finally finished, he felt just a little bit sleepy. He breathed a sigh of relief and quickly went to work with cleaning the kitchen. All the rejected cakes were going to be stored in his fridge until he got around the eating them. He pushed his cooking tray back inside the oven, it could wait there till later. The whisk, spoons, measuring containers and the oven-proof plate he had used to bake the cake were going to wait in the sink until later in the day. He quickly wiped the kitchen container. Feeling accomplished, he checked the time. It was 7:30 AM. It was a good thing that Takano was a little late that morning.

 

He yawned and slowly went over to his bed. He climbed on it, hugged his pillow and promptly fell asleep.

* * *

Something was trying to stab him, Ritsu was sure of it. He tried grabbing on to whatever was poking at him and opened his eyes, “Takano-san, what do you think you’re doing?”

 

“Trying to wake you up obviously, now sit up. I need to check your temperature.”

 

“Hah? I feel fine.” Ritsu glared defiantly

 

“Yes, fine. Now open your mouth.” The minute Ritsu opened his mouth to protest, Takano shoved a thermometer inside it.

 

When the thermometer started beeping, he pulled it out, “Well, it looks like it’s come down from yesterday.”

 

“Takano-san! What are you doing?” Ritsu glared

 

“I had to stop by work, I’m sorry if I’m a little late.” Takano leaned in towards Ritsu and kissed his forehead

 

What was with this romantic lovey-dovey scene? Did Takano think they were some newly married couple where he needed to dote on Ritsu and fret about simply because he got a little sick?

 

“I can take care of myself.” Ritsu looked straight at the man as his stomach started growling

 

“Yes, I can see that.” Takano snorted as he walked towards the kitchen and started opening the refrigerator, “I left some food for you yesterday so all we have to do is heat it up and…” He stared into the refrigerator for several minutes before abruptly closing it.

 

“Onodera, just how many cakes did you want to eat last night?” He looked confused before noticing the cake on the kitchen counter.

 

“Ta-takano-san! What are you doing?” Ritsu screamed in protest as he scrambled to get out of bed

 

“Could it be, that… you made this by yourself?” Takano looked surprised

 

“That? Ah…” Ritsu quickly thought of things to say. Should he tell Takano that he spent his early morning baking a cake for his birthday? That sounded so cheesy, this was all happening because his daily life was full of shoujo manga! It was all because of work, he was sure, “Please don’t misunderstand, I just felt like eating cake. That was all.” Ritsu huffed and looked towards the wall. What was he saying? That was so obviously unbelievable.

 

Takano hadn’t noticed the cake when he first entered the apartment, he had been concerned that he was later than he had expected and had rushed towards Ritsu to check his temperature. The more he started paying attention to the kitchen, the more obvious the signs became. The floor was dirty, Ritsu had probably spilt flour on it; the sink was messy and the refrigerator was the final proof he needed.

 

Takano walked towards Ritsu and pulled him in a tight embrace.

 

“Huh? What are you…?” Ritsu groaned as the older man overpowered him. He felt himself leaning against Takano’s chest, his hands by his side. He didn’t want to pay any attention to it, but he was sure that he could feel Takano’s heart beating fast. Ritsu tried to hide his blush and hid his face in the man’s jacket.

 

“Onodera, thank you.” Takano whispered into his left ear.

 

“Huh?” Ritsu’s voice came out muffled from the jacket, “What do you mean? I just wanted to eat a little cake.”

 

“Onodera…” Takano slowly pulled away from Ritsu. He grabbed the man’s chin with one hand and leaned in to kiss him. Leaned his head back and opened his mouth slightly. For that moment, his head felt messy and his body felt hot. But he didn’t want the man to stop.

* * *

The next time Ritsu woke up, it was already dark outside.

 

The sounds coming from the kitchen betrayed Takano’s location. The smell of cooked food made Ritsu’s mouth water. He groaned as he tried to sit up, his hips were hurting even more than they usually do after their encounters. He still felt ill, but he had definitely improved from the day before.

 

“Good, you’re up.” Takano poked his head out from the kitchen, “Do you want to eat now?”

 

“Sure.” Ritsu stared at the man. Where did he get that much energy from?

 

“Okay, take a bath first then.”

 

“A bath?” Ritsu was definitely not in the mood for that, “Uh… maybe later.”

 

“Onodera.” Takano had come out from the kitchen and was pointing a spatula in his direction, “This is an order. Take a bath and get ready for dinner.”

 

Order? Why was his boss ordering him to take a bath out of all things? It was unfair how Takano passed so many things off as ‘orders’.

 

“Or do you want me to join you?” Takano smirked

 

Ritsu scrambled out of bed, “No need! I can take a bath by myself, alone!” He shouted as he hurried towards the bathroom.

* * *

The bath had left him feeling refreshed.

 

Takano had already set out the food by the time he came out. It looked like they were going to have stew that night. During dinner, Ritsu felt anxious. Sure the cake had looked fine, but did it taste good? He had tasted the batter initially after making it. But what about the final product? Did it taste good altogether? Was it sweet?

 

After they finished eating, he noticed that Takano was getting up, “Wait! I’ll clean up.”

 

“You?” Takano looked as if he didn’t want to let the man do any work

 

“Yeah. It’s your birthday, so you should just stay seated.” Ritsu blushed as he grabbed the bowls from the table and walked into the kitchen. The floor was clean, the utensils in the sink weren’t there anymore and… he opened the refrigerator, as he expected, the cakes he had kept there had vanished as well. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, he already knew that he probably wouldn’t be eating them, he just felt bad about throwing them away.

 

Ritsu closed the door, picked up the cake and walked towards the small table in the living room. Takano followed him and sat down on the side facing the couch. Ritsu went back in the kitchen, grabbed some plates and a knife and came back. He sat down opposite from Takano and looked nervous, “Ha-happy birthday.” He wanted to look anywhere but at Takano, but curiosity won him over and he turned to look at the man. He was staring straight at him. Ritsu handed him the cake knife and waited.

 

He could hear Takano chuckle as the knife bit into the cake. Takano cut himself a big size and looked at Ritsu, “Uh, smaller than that please.”

 

With their plates set before them, Takano spooned up a small portion of the cake and bit into it. The look of surprise on his face alerted Ritsu. Was that a good sign? A bad sign?

 

“This is better than I expected.” He teased

 

“What?” Ritsu glared, “I’ll have you know that I can do anything I want to once I set my mind on it!”

 

Takano laughed, “I know.”

 

Ritsu took a bite out of his cake. Takano was right, it was better than he had expected. He hadn’t expected his payoff to actually taste good, but he was glad that it did.

 

“Onodera?” Ritsu looked up at the man, “Thank you.” Takano was smiling at him. There it was again, Ritsu couldn’t help but wonder why the man looked so lonely at times, even when he otherwise implied he was happy.

 

Ritsu nodded before taking a bite of his cake, “About the Year End party this week.”

 

“You don’t have to go. I’ve already informed Isaka-san.”

 

“Wait. Why?”

 

“You need to get better!” Takano’s authoritative tone was back again, “You need to be back at work on the first day! Remember almost everyone has more work now!”

 

“Hah? Takano-san, that is at least two weeks away.” Ritsu looked confused, “I’m better now, I can definitely go to the party.”

 

“You can go if your fever subsides.” Ritsu felt like he was talking to his mother, “Are you going to meet your family for New Year?”

 

“Yeah, I have to go out of the city.” Ritsu’s mother had already sent the address, and he was not looking forward to it

 

“If you don’t get better by then, I can drive you.” That was sudden and Ritsu was not expecting it.

 

“You don’t have to. I’m sure I’ll be fine.” The thought of having Takano with him at the celebration when his father might very well be aware of their relationship made Ritsu more uncomfortable than he cared to admit

 

Takano shrugged, “This is only if you’re too ill to go by yourself.”

 

“I’ll be fine.” Ritsu protested.

* * *

Of course he wasn’t fine. Of course his body had decided to fall ill two days after Takano’s birthday. Not only had he missed the Year End party, now he had to convince Takano to not come with him to his grandfather’s estate. This was going to be so much fun.

 

By the time the 30th of December rolled around, he still hadn’t gotten through to Takano. The whole conversation had ended with a, “I’m your boss and you are my responsibility.”

Ritsu had a vague suspicion that Takano wanted to go with him, and was going to do it by hook or by crook. And every time Ritsu remembered Takano’s lonely eyes, it became that much harder to refuse him. What was Takano going to do after Ritsu left? He had already told him that he didn’t visit family around that time of the year, so was he going to hang out with Yokozawa? That idea didn’t make Ritsu very happy either.

 

Which was why visions of impending doom crossed across his eyes as he sat in Takano’s car on the way to his grandfather’s estate.

 

“Ah, turn right here!” Ritsu pointed out towards the road in front of them. They were almost here. His heart was throbbing almost as fast as his head. This was not a good idea.

Takano followed Ritsu’s direction until they finally pulled up along a long stretch of dirt road. There were cars lined on the side of the street, and after he had pulled up, he leaned back in his seat.

 

“Th-thank you for dropping me. Have a safe trip home!” Ritsu quickly undid his belt and grabbed his bag.

 

“Home? It’s already sunset.”

 

What? Did Takano intend to spend the night with him and his family? This was more horrible than he had imagined. If there was any way that his father did not know about his love life, then bringing a strange man to the family gathering for New Year’s was definitely going to give everything away.

 

“Is there a hotel in this village?” Takano sounded uncertain about where he would spend the night.

 

“Hotel? No I’m pretty sure there isn’t.” It was Ritsu’s turn to look confused.

 

“Hmm. Then I suppose I can just sleep in the car tonight.”

 

“Sleep in the car? It’s freezing outside!” Ritsu was beginning to see the dilemma, even if it wasn’t Takano’s plan to spend the night with his family, leaving him out to sleep in a car in the dead of winter while he was warm inside the house with plenty of food was something Ritsu couldn’t stand to do, “You can just spend the night with me- us.” He finished.

 

“Is that alright?” Takano was staring at him, he looked slightly surprised.

 

Ritsu nodded. It wasn’t as if he had a choice in the matter, this was the best course of action, “Just… I don’t want my parents to know…so…”

 

Takano sighed before nodding, “I know.”

* * *

His mother had come out to greet him as soon as he had entered the large house, but she had stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Takano, “Ritsu, you didn’t tell me you were bringing a friend.”

 

“Ah, this is Takano Masamune, he is my superior at work. He offered to drop me off since I was still ill.” Ritsu tried his best to sound polite. Takano held out his business card towards Ritsu’s mother. She cautiously accepted it before nodding.

 

“I’ll find out where you can sleep tonight,”  she told Takano, she then bowed and left the entrance room.

 

“Haha-ha, isn’t that good? Now you don’t have to sleep in the car.” Ritsu laughed nervously before looking at Takano. He didn’t think it was possible for the man to look tense, but there he was, staring at everyone in the room, “Takano-san?”

 

“You sure have a big family.”

 

“Uh-yeah. We hardly ever all get together though.” Ritsu looked around the room, there were people everywhere, most of whom he didn’t even recognize.

 

“Do you want to sit somewhere?” Takano motioned to some of the chairs nearby, Ritsu suddenly remembered his headache. He had been so nervous about bringing Takano home that he had forgotten all about his illness.

 

“Sure.”

* * *

The two of them sat awkwardly in one corner of the room for the longest time. This was why Ritsu hated these get-togethers, at the beginning everyone would come and say ‘hello’, but eventually he was always left to his devices. If Takano wasn’t around, he would have just opened a book and started reading. But with Takano cautiously looking at everyone in the room, there was something even more entertaining to see this year.

 

“Takano-san, are you hungry?” Ritsu finally broke the silence, “I want to see if there are any snacks around.” He should at least try to be a good host.

 

Takano nodded and followed Ritsu into the main hallway. Eventually they reached the end of the hall where Ritsu opened the door, inside there were many children running around. One boy was eyeing the large cake in the middle of the table, “Mother, I was wondering…”

 

“Ritsu! I was looking for you. Your father was looking for you. You really need to pick up your phone!” Suddenly Ritsu wasn’t very hungry anymore, “Go quick. He’s probably still in the verandah!”

 

“Ah?” Ritsu quickly glanced at Takano. What was he going do with the man?

 

Takano looked at him curiously, “I can take care of myself for a few minutes.” He had one eyebrow raised as if to question what Ritsu was worried about.

 

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of your friend.” Ritsu’s mother walked towards them, “Now hurry and go!”

 

Take care? Ritsu did not want to know how this was going to turn out. Now that he thought about it, she hadn’t introduced him to any women that evening. This was stranger than fiction.

 

“Ritsu. Don’t just stand there, hurry up and go!”

 

Ritsu jumped in his spot, turned around and quickly walked away.

 

“Takano-san, was it? Are you hungry Her smile was very forced.Suddenly Takano felt as if staying home might not have been such a bad idea after all.

* * *

Ritsu’s mother guided him to an empty room. It was spacious, and the tatami mats lining the floor gave off a homely vibe. Towards one corner of the room, Takano noticed Ritsu’s bags, “I’m sorry we couldn’t find a place for you to sleep tonight. There are so many people here, so I hope you would be okay rooming with my son.”

 

Takano waved his hands, “It’s no problem.”

 

“ My son tells me that you’ve been taking good care of him at work.” She bowed once more, “Thank you.” She walked inside the room and motioned for him to come in. Once he had, she folded the door behind him.

 

“Takano-san, how long are you planning on staying here?” She sounded a bit stiff

 

Taken aback, Takano all but whispered, “I’ll be going back tomorrow morning.”

She nodded, “I see. I will bring you something to eat, so feel free to relax until Ritsu comes back.”

 

Takano could sense the hostility, but he chose to remain silent. Ritsu’s mother touched the door and turned around, “I don’t know what relationship you have with my son, but you should know that he has responsibilities.”

 

“What?” The words came out of his mouth before he could stop himself, “I beg your pardon, but I don’t see what you mean.”

 

She glared at him, the glare was surprisingly similar to Ritsu’s. Takano wondered if that was why it didn’t have much of an effect on him, “Word gets around quickly in the publishing business.” With that, she closed the door and left the room.

* * *

Ritsu was out of breath by the time he reached the verandah, thankfully his father was still there. But he was talking to three other people.

 

Ritsu quietly approached him, “Father?”

 

“Ritsu?” His father turned around, his straight and formal figure made Ritsu nervous, “If you’ll please excuse me.” He bowed to the group and walked towards Ritsu, “Shall we take a walk?” He smiled.

 

Ritsu was still a little worried, but he was glad to see his father after so long. The man had worn a traditional yukata with a green sweater on top of it. His slippers clacked against the floor as he walked down from the verandah and into the garden. Ritsu quietly followed.

 

Once they were out of earshot, his father turned to him, “How is work?”

 

Ritsu balked as he heard that. Were they going to talk about Takano immediately? “It’s going well. I’ve learnt a lot about manga publishing.”

 

His father laughed out loud, “Is that so? Tell me then.”

 

He stared at his father, “Tell you what?”

 

“I never expected my bookworm son to be so successful in manga publishing. I was really surprised when I heard that. Looks like Isaka was right about you.”

 

“Eeeeeeh?!” Ritsu all but screamed, “Did you put me up for that?” He glared.

 

“What? No. I simply suggested you needed wider experiences, Marukawa decided on the rest.”

 

That wasn’t any better. He had to practically keep his head out of the water for the first few months, and this revelation was beginning to make him a little angry, “What else did Isaka-san tell you?”

 

His father stopped, “What do you mean?”

 

“Takano-san.” Ritsu looked down at the ground, “I could tell mother knows.”

 

“Ritsu. That is really none of my business.” His father sighed, “Did she say something to you?”

 

“No… but. She didn’t seem to like Takano-san.”

 

His father stared at him, “You brought him here?”

 

“Well, various things happened and…” Ritsu’s father chuckled before he could continue

 

“You’ve grown since the last time we met. I don’t remember you being this forceful.” Ritsu was feeling furious, his father might have known what he was like if he paid attention to anything other than work.

 

“Do you take me seriously?” His heart was beating fast, his face felt flushed and he was clenching his hands into a fist, “Do you even want me to take over the company.” Ritsu closed his eyes, he didn’t want to know. He really didn’t want to know.

 

“Do you want to?” His father asked.

 

“Huh?” Ritsu opened his eyes, “What… I want?”

 

Ritsu’s father stretched his hands out, “Initially I had to take over Onodera Publishing because there was no one else who could do the job. But things are different now, I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did.”

 

“What?” Ritsu’s head swiveled, “I don’t have to?”

 

“I want you to. But only if you’re good enough.” His father was looking serious, “You got everything you wanted at Onodera. I was glad when you chose to leave. In today’s world of business, there isn’t any place for people who can’t firmly stand on their own two feet.”

 

The fact that he had a choice came as a shock to Ritsu. He had always felt that this was going to be his role, and he had done everything he could so that he would be worthy of it.

 

“Well, I don’t think you need to worry about it for now. Go see the world, get new experiences, and when you’re ready, come back and tell me to step down.” His father sighed, “And in case you find something else to do, there are many bright talents in our company who could easily take my place.”

 

Ritsu still wasn’t sure if his father being serious, “But me and Takano-san…”

 

His father shook his head, “Do what you want. I wasn’t too happy when I first heard about it. And even now, well… to find out that you brought him here.” His father looked away, “But if he can teach you this much about the world of publishing… learn all you can from him.” And there was his father avoiding the topic again

 

“Oh…” Ritsu stared into the evening orange sky, “So there was nothing to worry about.”

 

“You were worried?” His father looked curious

 

Ah. Ritsu hadn’t meant to say it out loud, “N-no, I mean…”

 

The older man laughed, “It feels good talking to you sometimes. You really look so much like your mother.”

 

“What?” Ritsu snapped his head towards his father, “I do?”

 

“Well, you two are related. Though I sometimes wonder what part of me you got. Now come on.” He draped one hand over Ritsu’s shoulder, “Tell me how you go about your new job.”

* * *

Ritsu was in a really good mood by the time he came back

 

Telling his father all about his role in the industry, about Emerald’s monthly cycles and how Takano acted as the resident tyrant had really improved his mood. Well, his father had shied back slightly each time he mentioned Takano’s name, but if he was going to someday be serious with the man, he was glad knowing that father wouldn’t actively oppose him at least. His mother on the other hand…

 

“Ritsu!”

 

“Yes?” Ritsu turned around in a half circle and spotted his mother standing near the verandah. He waved at his father and hurried towards his mother, “Is everything okay?”

 

“What were you thinking bringing that man to this house?” She whispered and motioned for Ritsu to follow her.

 

Well, there went his pleasant chat. He really hadn’t expected to do this back to back.

 

He followed her into the large, empty dining room. The dinner preparations were in full swing, so none would be coming here for a while, “Please tell me he isn’t the reason you broke up with An-chan.”

 

Ritsu looked away from her, he wanted to look anywhere but at her.

 

“I knew it. Hurting a precious person because of him.”

 

“What do you mean? It’s true that An-chan is a good friend of mine, but I’ve never seen her as anything more. I have told you this before.” He tried to keep his voice low. He couldn’t explain why, but hearing Takano being referred to like that really made him angry

 

“Don’t talk back to me.” Ritsu flinched, “How are you supposed to take over the company with all these rumors floating around? I was ready to believe that these rumors were just that, but after this!” She pointed in the general direction of his room

 

“I don’t work at Onodera Publishing, and Marukawa doesn’t seem to have a problem with my personal life.”

 

His mother looked slightly taken aback, “He brought me here because I might not be able to come otherwise. Now if you’ll excuse me.” He turned around to walk away, but his mother gripped his hands, “Do you know what you’re saying? The world isn’t such an easy place to live!”

 

“I know.” Ritsu whispered, “But it doesn’t have to be as hard as you’re making it for me right now.”

 

“What? I’m just concerned.” She looked angry

 

“Concerned about rumors more than about me?” She looked away, “You and Father have always given me what I wanted. Whether it be books, changing school mid-way or even suddenly joining Marukawa Shoten. So I’ve never said anything, not about the engagement, not about having to come back to Onodera Publishing, I’ve done everything you said.”

 

“And that’s what you should do.” His mother nodded.

 

Ritsu jerked his hands away from her, “I don’t want to talk about this. I’ll be leaving now.”

 

“Is he really that important to you? A man you’ve barely known for a few months of your life?!” Her voice was becoming louder

 

“Actually…uh…” Ritsu tugged at his hair. “I’ve uh… known him for ten years.”

 

“You… what?!” She stared at him incredulously, “But that was when you went to…” Her eyes opened wide, “How long has this been going on? Did he have anything to do with you wanting to leave?” She looked furious.

 

Ritsu laughed nervously, “Well, this is… how do I put it? Very complicated.”

 

“Does An-chan know about him?” Her voice was down to a whisper

 

Ritsu nodded.

 

His mother sighed, “I have no clue what you people are doing. But it’s unacceptable to keep so many secrets from me.”

 

“Sorry.” Ritsu quickly bowed

 

She sighed, “Ritsu, I don’t know what to say.” She placed a hand on her son’s head. He looked up from where was bowing, “Are you serious?”

 

Ritsu wanted to say no, he was so accustomed to it that it felt natural. He didn’t want to tell himself the truth, there was no way he was going to admit to being in love with Takano this easily, “I might be.”

 

She removed her hand, “Ritsu, you’re my only son and I don’t want to fight with you. But… you should be more careful of your life choices.”

 

Ritsu bowed again, “I’ll try to hide things better in the future. I’m sorry.”

 

“Hide things… better?” He looked up to stare at his mom. That may have come off a little more differently than he had originally imagined it, “You… dinner will be served soon. Don’t be late, and make sure you take a bath first.”

 

Why was everyone telling him to take a bath?

 

“He’ll be spending the night with you, so please be careful of your surroundings.”

 

Why did he have to room with Takano? His mother was so incomprehensible sometimes, if she was uncomfortable at the thought of him and Takano being in a relationship, then what logic could have possessed her to make him share with the man? He walked into the living room to cross to the other side. He stopped for a minute to look at the gigantic crowd, ‘Oh.’ He thought. There went his hopes of having his old summer vacation room all to himself.

* * *

Takano had been unusually quiet for the rest of the evening. Once word had gotten around about who he was, he was suddenly surrounded by people who wanted to meet the famous editor-in-chief of the Emerald Editorial Department. But he hadn’t seemed his usual enthusiastic self.

 

He hadn’t been speaking much to Ritsu either, he just seemed to mechanically go through handing out his business card to people, and routinely checking the time. Ritsu was sure that something had happened; he just could not get the man to tell him what it was.

 

That night, Ritsu felt extremely uncomfortable. Takano had gone to sleep straight after dinner and Ritsu had been dragged off by a cousin to meet her fiancé. This was all turning out to be a gigantic mess. He was glad when the time came that he could finally go to sleep. He would simply have to wake up before Takano and try and make him come out with what was bothering him so much.

* * *

Ritsu made sure to wake up early, but Takano was already up by then. He was leaning against the only window in the room. He looked deep in thought.

 

“Takano-san?”

 

“You’re up.” Takano turned to look at him, “I’m going to be leaving soon.”

 

Ritsu wasn’t sure why, but those words felt a little final to him. Before he could stop himself, he blurted out, “You can stay till the New Year.”

 

Takano’s eyes widened, “What?”

 

“Ye-yeah. So many people here want to know you better. And if you go home, I’m not sure you have any plans so… do you have any plans?” He nervously looked at the man. Had he ever seen Takano look that surprised?

 

“No,” He whispered

 

“Ah.Ha-hahahaha, isn’t that great? New Year’s day together.” And with that, Ritsu promptly snuck inside his futon and smacked himself. How was he going to explain this to his parents?

* * *

But explaining things to his parents turned out to be a lot easier than he expected. His father looked a little uncomfortable, but after finally meeting Takano he had decided that this might be a good chance to find out about his son’s work. That was how Takano found himself surrounded by publishers from a rival company, all dying to know his secret.

 

As for his mother, she had looked disappointed, but there were too many people around for her to make a fuss. Taking advantage of that, Ritsu had disappeared for the rest of the day. Having Takano enter the New Year with him was not what he had in mind, but he wasn’t sure he was unhappy with it either.

* * *

“Finally, we’re alone.” Takano brought out a futon from the closet and handed it to Ritsu, “Are you sure you don’t want to continue on with the festivities?”

 

It was Takano who had suggested that he wanted to turn in, and Ritsu had simply followed him in.

 

“Yeah, I’m trying to keep a low profile tonight.” He did not want to talk about Takano to his mother, anything except that.

 

“It’s going to be the next year in a few minutes.” Ritsu was done making his own bed and moved to help Takano

 

“Let’s hope our new issue works out.”

 

Takano snorted, “Do you always think about work?”

 

“I’m here to propel my career and noth-” He stopped, startled as Takano suddenly leaned in to kiss him. He struggled initially, but almost immediately gave in. He felt out of breath by the time they parted, Takano-san?”

 

“Onodera, I love you.” The man’s face was still so close to his, he could feel the cold breath on his face, “I don’t care what responsibilities you have…”

 

“Wait, Takano-san!” Ritsu pulled away from him and clutched at his shirt, “What are you talking about? Did my mother say something?”

 

Takano’s expression gave it all away. At least Ritsu now knew why the man had worn a sullen expression for the better part of his visit here, “I don’t know what she said, but I am aware of my responsibilities.” He clutched at the man’s shirt tighter.

 

Takano’s eyes widened and he reached out to cup Ritsu’s cheeks, “Does that mean…?”

 

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” Ritsu snapped, “I’m talking about work!”

 

Takano smirked, “You can’t ever be truthful to yourself, can you?”

 

Ritsu was looking as red as a tomato, “I can too!”

 

“Then say it.”

 

“Say what?” Ritsu stared on defiantly.

 

Takano laughed softly as he leaned in for another kiss. Ritsu didn’t entirely object, and before he knew what he was doing, he was returning the kiss with almost equal fervour.

 

By the time the clock chimed twelve; two bodies writhed together under a futon. Ritsu was entirely sure that it was his headache confusing him, but there was a chance, a very little, minute, small, inescapable chance, that he just might be in love with Takano Masamune.

* * *

Onodera Ritsu used to feel insecure about working in manga publishing.

 

But by the end of January, something had changed.

 

It was now the beginning of January, and he was standing in front of a shop called ‘Marimo Books’. He slowly walked inside and peered into the section that stacked Shoujo Manga. There, right at the top was the exhibition he had proposed earlier. The manga in question belonged to the same author who he had rushed to, afraid that she might default. He wondered what she would say if she saw this. There was a small crowd of girls in front of the exhibition, they were looking delighted and cooing at the exhibition.

 

Ritsu wondered who was responsible for setting it up, it had turned out much better than he had expected. There was a cut out of the lead heroine looking defiantly at the hero as he held her phone above her head. At one hour intervals, a staff employee would come in and change a placard where the text in the phone was supposed to be.

 

That part was not Ritsu’s idea and he applauded whoever thought up of it. People at the shop could write down a paper and suggest what those placards would say. When Ritsu had come in the morning, it was a simple, “I love you.” By the time he came in the evening, it read, “Let’s go to the shrine next year together!” Although the original message was from the heroine to the hero, the names had changed over the course of the day, and little nicknames and personalized messages kept filling the spot.

 

Ritsu hadn’t expected the idea to actually succeed. People were taking pictures of it; they were posing in front of their messages and smiling happily. And the part that made Ritsu the happiest was that the pile of manga that had been high in the morning was now reduced to a few books.

 

He watched at two girls laughing as they purchased the book. He looked down at the floor, his face hidden behind his hands and smiled. Maybe he was meant to be in this business after all.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to work with some of the prompts you provided, but at one point the story just started writing itself. I did try and include as many of the ideas that could be appropriately incorporated into the story, and it was a lot of fun! Thank you so much for giving me the chance to write this. I hope you enjoyed reading it, and have a Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year!


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